


The Lunch

by agoodwoman



Series: Instinct Over Reason [12]
Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: F/M, Gillovny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:37:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9298388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: After the Golden Globes, January 2017, David and Gillian have a lot to discuss





	1. Chapter 1

After the overwhelming heat of Los Angeles in January, she stopped for three days in New York City to remind herself of the bone-chilling winters that were possible. There was still talk about bringing back Streetcar and if that was going to happen before the Tennessee Williams Legacy deemed her too old, she had to make herself available. The TCA’s were happening and negotiations were still taking place. Publisher meetings, book details with follow-up for her ‘manifesto’ and visiting friends on her schedule but mainly this was a work trip.

He called her at the luggage carousel and she wondered how he had a handle on where she was at all times. Some short conversations lead to them planning lunch. They were still friends even though they had called it off. He generously offered to meet her at her hotel in the next hour after she checked in.

The drive to the hotel felt shorter than usual and she wondered if it was because she was lost in her own mind of the reasons she gave him. They had a conversation that was painful and poignant.

It was after their birthdays and before the Chicago convention that they were forced to spend a weekend playing nice when neither of them knew how to act around each other. They spent four days together, talked about what was important in the future, had some mind-blowing sex and a very difficult discussion at the end. She had been leading up to it since she left New York City after Streetcar and he had to know the conversation was coming. Every interview she had, he was brought up and she was frustrated with what she was allowed to say. He casually reminded her that she set the rules this time around when it came to their privacy.

 _“I love you. I love how we are together but we’re never officially going to be something I can talk about_ in _the press without getting into how it all began,” she told him. “It would hurt way too many people in our lives. I need to try to have something for myself that can just be what it is.”_

He agreed their messy and convoluted past would just be the subject of scrutiny. Usually when she made this argument, he fought harder and they could make it work. She conceded in his beliefs and tried to be less demanding on him to fill the loneliness of hiding a twenty three year affair. The problem was she was tired of lying and only telling half-truths.

They never got their stories straight when it came to slip ups anyway. That whole mess of her walking in on him as he got dressed in his trailer or was it her walking into her trailer and he got the location wrong before dropping trough? She still wasn’t sure what happened because her eyes were too distracted by the fact that he was completely naked and got semi-hard when he saw her. It was embarrassing for both of them because it was another time when they were supposed to be sleeping with other people.

He had told her he wouldn’t stop being her friend, even if he couldn’t be her ‘adult friend.’ It was the only reasonable way she could describe a boyfriend or girlfriend after forty.

Her last trip to New York City was different from this one and she was attempting to put different memories of the city in her mind. Every time she thought of this place, it brought her back to him and the moments they created together over the years and into the run of her emotionally draining play.

Planning lunch today was a bad idea, that was certain, but she missed him and who he was in her life. Since they called it off - rather she called it off and he acquiesced - her life had a become complicated with someone else. It seemed to be their pattern.

It was as she was unpacking her suitcase that a knock at the door shook her from her unwinding routine. She never totally unpacked when she was at a hotel but she liked to set out her toiletries where she liked them. She was doing just that when she opened the door with a bottle of night-time cream in her hands.

He was standing there with a smile on his stubbled face and sunglasses tucked into his sweater under a puffy jacket.

“Did you steal that from Chris?” she said, nodding to the black coat.

“It’s not bright orange or blue, so no,” he quipped about their former boss and they shared a laugh.

 _Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all_ , she thought.

“Are you going to let me in?” he asked as though being in a room alone together didn’t end up with her clothes being peeled from her body with his deft fingers.

She cleared her throat and tried to fight a flush that was creeping up her cheeks. She stepped back from the doorway. “Come on in.”

“You can finish doing your little ritual if you want,” he said as he glanced down at the bottle in her hand.

She nodded and left him to close the door while she finished. They both knew it would weigh on her while they visited if she didn’t have her things in an order that she liked. She was anal retentive about certain specific things. It was a little OCD and he ensured her it was adorable. He used to ensure her it was adorable - she wasn’t sure how their relationship would fare in the weather of being “just” friends or whatever the term was when you tried to stop sleeping with someone you never should have started with.

She brushed her teeth, took a towelette to her face and returned to the bedroom where he was laid across her bed with her pillow tucked under his head. He was staring up at the ceiling of her hotel room as his shoes hung off the bed. His jacket laid beside him with his scarf and gloves on top as though he was only half-overstepping.

“Ready?” he asked as he propped himself up on his elbows.

If this was before, she might climb on the bed and sit astride him to kiss away the feelings of frustration she had in her life outside of this room. If this was before, he would have fucked her all afternoon in various positions that allowed them to escape.

She had told him she was tired of escaping reality with him. He told her he thought she wanted magic and it was the closest she ever came to slapping someone for quoting Blanche Dubois to her face.

“Sure,” she managed.

He climbed off the bed and approached her with his things in hand. “Wanna get a bite downstairs? They had stuff you like.”

She felt her heart swell a little at the small gestures of thoughtfulness she had come to appreciate about him. They were few and far between but always touching and showcased the romantic soul inside him.

She nodded and he held a hand out to escort her to the elevator. The usual hand went to her back and she felt the heat of his body radiate through her sweater. She grabbed her impractical leather jacket and purse from the chair by the door.

“Is that all you brought with you to New York?” he teased, being aware that this leg of the trip was last minute.

Although it wasn't practical to wear this in London, she hadn’t expected to be in the cold more than a few minutes. She could layer up with an extra sweater or put on a scarf, she told herself as she contemplated the different coats to bring with her. She had made a New Year’s resolution to travel light and yet she still arrived in Los Angeles with two oversized cases.

The elevator car ride was quiet as they stood slightly too close that she could smell his sandalwood and vanilla soap and the mild cologne on his body. She wondered if he could smell her as well and she tried to focus on breathing through her mouth. She couldn’t taste him - her mind stopped there thinking of tasting anything of his as dangerous.

“How was your flight?” he asked as he looked down at her.

She could feel him watching her and she told herself not to look up because eye contact with anyone who knew her too well would be dangerous right now.

“Good,” she replied as she glanced down at her shoes.

Tall boots to make her taller and impractical too. It made the height difference between them less but he still towered over her like a giant. So much of him was tall and large. From his giant feet to his-

 _Stop it Gillian!_ her mind screamed.

“How was yours?” she asked as she glanced up to him.

He looked confused for a moment and then nodded in understanding. “Oh from Costa Rica? It was good.”

“You look not too tanned,” she noted.

He shrugged. “Apparently the sun is trying to kill us.”

She laughed. “Just like processed foods, dairy, meat and carbs?”

“Well those want to make us fat first and then they want to kill us,” he quipped and they both laughed. “It’s a lot harder to eat like a vegetarian in South America that you might think.”

She noticed that he said to eat like a vegetarian than be vegetarian because he liked labels but not in regards to himself unless he used the bunny ears quotations and mocked himself.

“I can imagine,” she said.

“I’m serious. There’s chicken in everything,” he insisted.

“What about beans and rice?” she asked. “I thought that was full of good protein.”

He rubbed a hand across his stomach. “Yeah but the beans make me gassy.”

“Everything does,” she laughed. “Anyways, I thought you ate chicken.”

He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I just realized I couldn’t be a vegan. That shit is too complicated. Gotta leave some wiggle room.”

She nodded. “Too much soy isn’t good for you either.”

“Soy is out to get us now?” he asked as the elevator car reached the main floor. “What the fuck is left?”

She made a face. “Meat.”

He scoffed and they crossed the lobby toward the Bar Seine. Maybe this was how friends hung out and discussed life. They had never really been much of friends without the sexual element. Yet this was a new year and he appreciated the self-reinvention and improvement of turning over a new leaf.

She didn’t ask how he knew what room she would be staying in, nor did she ask what he thought of the hotel. She wasn’t sure what that said about them that she probably knew what he was thinking. Maybe it wasn’t about what was said and it didn’t need to be laid out on the table.

Or maybe it did and she just wasn’t sure how to navigate friendships at all. She didn’t have much luck navigating friendships with former lovers overall and generally the cooling off period was accompanied by some petty, childish behaviour. Sometimes it was her, sometimes it was them but it always happened.

They were seated at a quiet table that was out of the way from too many prying eyes. He let her sit on the booth side of the table while he graciously took the chair side. He set his jacket across the back of the chair and stuffed his scarf and gloves into the arm. She kept her jacket on for the time being but put her purse at her feet to delay the urge to check her phone while they were together.

He ordered them coffee and water while they looked over the menu and she refrained from making a comment. At this time of day, he might drink wine or a cocktail but being around her, occasionally he refrained. She always appreciated that gesture.

She crossed her legs and tucked her foot behind her calf in an attempt to conserve her body heat.

“We could split the spicy crab cakes and a caesar salad,” he suggested.

Her tongue was feeling along her top teeth as she contemplated the offer. He was casual and hopeful but also he seemed detached and arrogant. It was this mix of a sweet asshole that made her crazy and stomach flip.

“I’ll treat you to some pistachio ice cream if you’re good,” he teased and she nodded. “Okay? We’re all set?”

The waiter returned to take their order before giving a slight look at the two of them sitting together. Neither of them looked like who they used to be on television anymore but being spotted at the same table was definitely newsworthy. If the young man who took their order wanted to make a few hundred bucks, he could place a call to any sleazy news outlet and they’d have to buy back pictures all over again. Except this time, there was nothing untoward or racy about what they were doing. They were two long-time friends enjoying a quiet afternoon coffee.

He poured some whole milk into her cup before putting a little in his. He stirred them both and watched as she added half a sweetener carefully to the coffee.

“Why just half?” he asked.

“One is too much,” she said with a shrug as she stirred the caramel coloured liquid.

She liked the size of the mugs. They were short and fat so the coffee would cool quickly but the porcelain was hot to the touch as though they had preheated them before making it.

She took a hesitant sip and covered her mouth with two fingers. “Good.”

He grinned just a little and took a sip of his own before they had a few beats of awkward silence.

“So can I ask about it?” he started. “About him?”

She looked at him questioningly. “I don’t know, David.”

“Gillian,” he implored. “I’m just wondering how you are. No petty motives, nothing up my sleeves.”

He pushed up the sleeves of his grey sweater and showed his bare forearms and she tried not to roll her eyes at the obvious joke.

“You’re still someone I care about,” he said and she believed him. “How’s things… with-”

“It’s mostly just a friendship,” she confessed and cutting him off before he said the other man’s name. He seemed relieved. “We’ve known each other for ten years-”

“I know,” he interrupted.

His memory was sharper than hers and she had to keep that in mind when explaining herself.

“It’s been a lot of lunches and theatre visits,” she told him. “I’m trying to be smarter this time.”

She was referring to how she was still married to one man when she got pregnant with another man’s child. She couldn’t risk never being able to have more children and knew that the controlling nature of her now ex-husband wouldn’t be someone she could fake it with any longer. The rebellious side of her, the side of her that liked things out of control as long as it was her doing, wanted to take over. Thus began another scandal in the eyes of the media and a complicated relationship that went on longer than she expected.

Music played over the speaker system of the bar and she recognized the beat immediately. Her cheeks flushed and she sat up a little straighter.

 _“And you got me like oh,_  
_what you want from me?_  
_What you want from me?_  
_And I tried to buy your pretty heart,_  
_but the price too high.”_

“It was okay,” she said casually.

He could always tell when she was acting but this time she hoped he could let that one moment slide.

 _“You love when I fall apart,_  
_so you can put me together,_  
_And throw me against the wall,”_

“What?” he asked over the music. He looked up annoyed slightly to the speaker above them and she decided he didn’t recognize or associate the song to them.

“It was good,” she said a little louder. “Too hot outside. Long lines and wait to get in. Everyone was drunk in an hour and they played people off stage before they could thank the people who really mattered.”

“You say that about every Globes,” he reminded her and she looked at him questioningly. “When you didn’t want to come last year with me?”

 _“Must be love on the brain,_  
_That’s got me feeling this way,_  
_It beats me black and blue but it fucks me so good,_  
_And I can’t get enough,_  
_Must_ be love _on the brain,”_

If the song could end by some announcement of a need to shut down the bar due to rats at this moment, she might be able to calm down.

“We settled that,” she said to him as though it was not just her hang up.

He wanted a public date but she wasn’t up to the public scrutiny. She didn’t much appreciate it now with her famous writer and producer friend either but he left her to fend for herself most of the night. It was the lack of his presence at her side that helped stave off rumours of their involvement.

“ _You_ settled it,” he reminded her. “I think it would have been fun.”

“You were in a reckless stage then,” she commented and he looked at her expectantly. “What?”

“I wasn’t reckless, Gillian,” he said frankly. “I was ready.”

She pulled her chin back and down slightly as she contemplated his statement. “You said-”

“I said we could be out in the open,” he reminded her. “I was ready.”

“Not ready enough,” she muttered, thinking about all the ways he wasn’t there for her when he should have been.

The waiter returned with their salad and crab cakes. They thanked him in unison with a tension in their voice that was obvious this was a fight. They split their items on small plates and she began cutting her crab cakes in uniform pieces.

“Are you talking about-”

“You know it is,” she said referring to the ways he didn’t exactly stand up for her when it counted.

If anyone was going to tear her down for something she said with an offhand remark, it should have been him and not someone who worked for him. The memory of that tongue lashing she received was still burning in her memory.

“I couldn’t say anything,” he implored and she looked up at him with an expression of disappointment while calling him on some mega bullshit.

He told her last year he hated it when she looked at him like that and she told him to stop behaving in a way that warrants it. Even a look could start a fight and that’s a sign you’ve been in a relationship too long.

“Don’t do that,” he told her and she looked down at her coffee. “Can you look at me?”

She took a sip of her coffee and looked down at the food that suddenly was unappetizing. She hated that when stressed, her body shut down its ability to remind her she needed food for fuel to keep going. She hadn’t had much time to lay in bed and contemplate the last twenty years in a self-flagellating review and to rebuke every decision. There hadn’t been enough time to wallow in her guilt over the hearts that had been broken because her hormones, when it came to the man across from her, became so unbridled that they had sex in places that could have gotten them arrested.

“Eat,” he instructed and she picked up her fork obediently. “Actually eat.”

She took a small bite and her taste buds appreciated the hint of fennel. “I learned a valuable lesson with that.”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“No matter who you are, you can’t call a woman with six dogs crazy,” she said and he laughed. “They don’t appreciate that moniker as much as cat people.”

He made a joking disgusted face. “Ugh, _cat_ people.”

It was a small inside joke between them because he often told her that even though she was highly allergic to the creatures, she had a lot of characteristics like them. She was self-sufficient, feral in ways that were unpredictable and skittish. Yet when she wanted attention, she was demanding to the point of sticking her ass in his face. It usually reminded him that she had never literally done that to get his attention but sure she came close.

“A cat person probably would have taken that as a compliment,” he noted.

“You like cats,” she pointed out.

He took a bite of his blackened cod and shrugged. “Maybe I like how they so obviously purr when you’ve been accepted by them.”

She felt herself flush again and cleared her throat.

“Does that make you uncomfortable?” he asked.

She licked her lower lip and tried to honestly say no but he was definitely aware that would have been a lie. “I think it’s odd to hear you talk about cats and not think of how you’ve described me.”

“All these little landmines in simple conversation,” he said as he took a bite. He chewed quickly and watched as she pushed the food around on her plate. “ _Eat_.”

“I _am_ eating,” she snapped as she took another bite and gave him an ‘are you happy’ look.

“I’m being nice,” he pointed out to her gently and she nodded because it was true.

He was being unbelievably nice, nicer than she would be if the tables were turned. She didn’t handle rejection well and maybe that’s why she had to call things off before he got a chance to. Maybe he already rejected her and letting her being the one to end it was another way he let her save face. She didn’t know but his kindness irked at her.

“Do you have time to take a walk with me after this? I have some of your stuff at my place you should have back.”

She looked down at her plate and nodded. “I don’t need that stuff…”

“You might feel differently once you see what I’ve got,” he told her and took another bite of lettuce. “I promise I’m asking you to pick up stuff that isn’t disposable.”

She nodded and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She liked spending time at his apartment when she was in New York. She liked the pink sunrise that peeked through the other buildings in the early morning. She liked that he kept a laptop at a small desk in his bedroom in case he had inspiration. Sheet music laid about on coffee tables as he tried to learn how to play the simple string notes of 1970s ballads. There was so much of his apartment that felt like a makeshift home and a little like a hotel he got comfortable living in. That was the danger in being a man who ate what was put in front of him and decided jelly omelettes were a delicacy. The strange things he liked, including her, were never something she understood about him but cherished nonetheless.

When they finished their meal he picked up the tab without a fuss and she watched as he paid the bill with a shiny new black credit card. As he tucked the receipt into his wallet, she made a surprised face.

“I’m going to be more organized in 2017,” he declared.

She adjusted the glasses on her face that she put on halfway through their meal as she reached down to get her bag from her feet. He reached across to take them off her face and used a cloth from his pocket to clean the smudge off the edge.

“These are filthy,” he admonished her playfully and continued to clean at them. He held them up toward the light so he could inspect them further. When he was finished, he put them on his own face and smiled at her. “I look pretty good in these, right?”

She laughed. “You do actually.”

He looked around as he was obviously trying to gauge her prescription. “You’re pretty fucking blind. How do you get around without these?”

“If I don’t have them on, I look like I’m scowling at everyone,” she explained. “It looks like I have resting bitch face but it’s really my ‘who the fuck is that over there’ face.”

She was trying to look across the bar as she was talking and he nodded at her as he handed back her glasses.

“You do look like you’re mad when you’re trying to see,” he noted.

“If I can’t see people, it’s also easier to not see them looking,” she pointed out and he nodded in understanding. “It makes for less anxiety.”

He reached across the table to her free hand and rubbed her palm with his thumb. “Are you anxious now?”

This was the way he was with her when they first met. Gentle and kind, a little arrogant and funny in a way that was disarming. It was so disarming she took her clothes off in the back of a car in a Santa Monica parking lot and fucked a man she barely knew even though they had other people. It was the first of many reckless choices they made that lead to the longest 'morning-after' of her life.

She nodded in confession.

“Why are you anxious?” he asked gently.

If she told him she missed him, it would confirm she made the wrong choice and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to admit that mistake. She wasn't sure if he would take her back, either.

“After Chicago-” she started and stopped to take a wavering breath.

They had made some very big mistakes in Chicago. He was aloof at first towards her. She made him sit next to her during the panel and in return, he acted as though she was still someone he had the free range to touch. It was reminiscent of wrap parties in Vancouver after she told him she was getting married and he still grabbed her waist and pulled her to him in an attempt to rattle her in ways that excited her. It wasn’t anything she didn’t appreciate but she was trying to make her life work with a seemingly good guy who turned out to be less than understanding that actors are weird, touchy and have no sense of boundaries. He pointed out to her very clearly that other costars don’t behave in this manner and he would know since he had been around the business longer than she had.

“Yeah?” he encouraged with a smile.

“We had agreed that was a bad idea,” she reminded him and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Didn’t we?”

“I think what happened was you kind of crushed my soul a little bit, you yelled at me and we had some pretty wild-”

“ _Careful_ ,” she cautioned.

“We did,” he said. “It was wild and fun.”

She smiled hesitantly. “Yes and in Vancouver-”

“Also, wild and fun,” he repeated.

“But we said-”

“You said.” he cut her off again. “You said this wasn’t working for you anymore and I agreed that it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t working for you either,” she reminded him. “You were frustrated we didn’t… go public, as it were.”

“You didn’t like that the only story in the media was that we kissed during a show and I told you that was going to happen,” he reminded her. “You have to let the media fuss over you for a bit before they look at your work again.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” she said sitting back against the booth cushions and crossing her arms under her breasts. “Mr. I don’t want the world focusing on my personal life, why isn’t my acting and these books I’m writing enough for the fans.”

“I’m not naive enough to think fans don’t want parts of my personal life,” he said. “I’ve resigned myself to know that appreciating the body of work I’m putting out into the universe for judegment won’t be enough and you know that flirting with me on a social media site gets newspapers frenzied and fanatical.”

She rolled her eyes. “As long as you’re in my life, people ask about you before they ask about my current projects.”

“Are you cutting all ties with me now?” he asked and she could see the worry in his eyes.

“No!” she answered quickly and grabbed his hand under the table. “No.”

He visibly relaxed and his fingers intertwined with hers. She let it happen and he gave a squeeze in reassurance.

“I’m just… I’m trying to make a body of work I’m proud of too,” she tried to explain. “That last season-”

“Well, I think we both know it wasn’t his best,” he cut her off. “Not that you could convince him of that.”

“He said I wasn’t believable,” she told him. “That I didn’t put enough into it.”

“I guess when you’re used to Oscar-winners writing your material with a feminist agenda-”

She pulled her hand from his. “Fuck you.”

“He’s never going to look at a woman and understand she’s more than one thing,” he tried to explain. “He sees Scully as some kind of saviour-type woman who can save the world OR be in a relationship. She couldn’t possibly do both.”

She felt defensive of Scully because of how much she got to grow in that role when other people were putting words in her mouth. The scripts Chris wrote were all too convoluted and the purple prose of his long monologues tired her out. It wasn’t Tennessee Williams. It was science fiction that reached for a base in facts that didn’t connect. It made her dizzy to think about. She was willing to give it another season when she and David had the respite of each other in the off-hours. It was less appealing now that they were in this strange place again.

“There’s nothing wrong with a feminist agenda if it shows women are equal to men,” she said quietly. “And the fact that they offered me half of what they offered you-”

“I had nothing to do with that,” he reminded her.

“Strong writing shows two women discussing things outside of their relationship with a man and one of the first conversations I had with another female on that show last season was about the relationship Scully had with Mulder,” she reminde him. “Women are not just obsessed with their relationships to women. We are equal in intelligence and the weight our parts carry-”

“I think women are mostly superior to men but I say that as a man who had some embarrassing shit to work through less than ten years ago,” he cut her off. “And Chris could learn from some of the other writers you’ve worked with.”

“Can you tell him that?” she asked with a rueful laugh.

He shook his head. “I tried to tell him that the ideas are good but he should let others write it. He won’t listen. The man has to try to do it all and it’s the downfall of the show.”

“I feel like this would have made me feel better to hear this over the summer when we were shooting,” she told him with a dejected frown.

“I am pretty sure I said that once or twice,” he told her but she didn’t remember.

That summer was a blur of work, long hours and travelling back to London every chance she had to check up on her kids. There was so much happening during that time and trying to learn the scripts with the chunky shit ticks of Dana Scully took more effort than she remembered.

David stood up and pulled his toque, scarf and gloves out of his jacket sleeve. “Come on, little sprite.”

“Where?” she asked as she stood up with her jacket and bag in hand.

He put his toque on her head and wrapped his scarf around her. Another thoughtful gesture that made her belly tighten.

“We’re going to walk through New York City’s most famous park, talk about books we are reading and then complete this last leg of something slightly painful,” he declared. He zipped up her jacket for her and looked down at her shoes. “You going to be okay to walk two miles in those?”

She looked down at the boots on her feet and shook her head. “I have another pair upstairs.”

He put his hand on her back and his other one gestured toward the direction of the elevators. “Come on, then.”

As they made their way to the elevators, she looked at him hesitantly and stopped before pressing the up arrow button.

“What?” he asked.

“Maybe you should stay down here,” she suggested hesitantly.

He looked obviously confused. “Why?”

“You and me seen leaving the bar, going up to my room…” Her voice trailed off. “It’s harder to explain if anyone snaps a shot of us.”

He glanced around them to where hotel staff, guests and visitors were going about their day as though they didn’t exist. She saw that as she looked around at them also.

“This is New York City and no one gives a shit about you, you pretentious theatre actress,” he said sarcastically. “Get over yourself.”

She laughed. “Okay, come on up.”

“Actually,” he started as he stepped back from her. “Why don’t you meet me around the corner at the Starbucks. I don’t want to make things more complicated for you. Just on Third Avenue.”

She nodded in appreciation. “Thank you.”

“Want another coffee?” he asked.

“Half sweet toffee nut Americano with room for milk,” she told him.

He tapped the side of his temple and left her with his toque and scarf to walk the six minutes to the Starbucks. She changed her boots to something more appropriate for a walk around New York in January. They were flatter and more of a rubber soul than the impractical hard bottoms she appreciated for the height and fashion aspect. She tucked her pants into the tall leg of the boot and looked at herself in the mirror before leaving again.

She had lost a bit of weight recently but not much. Her black jeans and sheet dark blue sweater with a nude camisole underneath was her travelling attire. If she changed into something else, he might notice. She decided to leave her attire as it were and let him suffer through her post-travel sweat. 

Los Angeles had been more tiring than she anticipated. The long flight, the company that Peter provided and the late night didn’t assuage the jet lag. It wasn’t surprising she fell asleep on the car ride back to the hotel. She was mildly disappointed she didn’t return to her room with a blinking message on her service from David checking in and asking about her night.

No one asked her how she fared on the red carpet with her nerves rattling as she posed for photos that would be sold and scrutinized. She tried to think of the last time she walked a red carpet and enjoyed herself.

Her mind immediately reminded her that when they walked the Paley red carpet, she had fun then but someone was there to ensure she wasn’t overwhelmed. Usually it’s an assistant or manager behind her, making sure she talks to the appropriate people and reminding her to smile. David was just there for her, stopping and holding his hand out to her when he was alone to ensure she saw that she most definitely wasn’t.

Whatever she was doing in regards to ending things with him was not because he wasn’t able to make her happy. David did make her happy. He made her laugh. He brought some kind of balance to her life while he made her forget her name while he paid attention to every part of her body that quaked under his touch.

On occasion, he made her cry and not because he had a mean streak in him. That side had certainly toned down from the late nineties when he was unbearable. He just wasn’t ready to put his personal life and desires first again because of how much that cost him the first time around. Not with her, but in his marriage. She knew all that, she watched it all crumble apart and hapazardly get slapped back together.

As she walked the streets of New York City toward the Starbucks, she tried to pay attention to what was around her but her mind got lost in the affection she held for a man who was so wrong for her while being so right.

It occurred to her that they never would have met if it wasn’t for that fateful audition. If they had, they wouldn’t have paid attention to each other - he was far too arrogant and she was clearly not his type. It was strange to be so sexually drawn to someone who you decided was dangerous and bad for you. Your mind said to walk away but your heart appreciated the pain they put you through.

The pain they put each other through was probably more accurate. They both could be mean when they wanted to be but she had made great efforts never to channel it toward him. This last year she didn’t manage that as much and he told her that the cruelty of her tongue was poetic. He didn’t mean that sexually.

Agreeing to meet with him was out of habit. She wanted to meet with him. She missed him and she trusted herself not to fall back into bed with him when they had declared themselves to be non-sexual adult friends. It was the lamest attempt they ever made to not having sex but there they were.

“Hey!” he called to her and she looked up from the pavement to where he was standing at the door. She looked up even further to see the kelly green awning. “Lost in your thoughts?”

She nodded, because she was, and he extended his hand to her. Out of habit, she took it.

“You look cute in that,” he said as he escorted her into the cafe and toward the waiting area as their drinks were being frothed and foamed. He made a gesture to accentuate their height difference. “Little sprite.”

“I’m a giant woman with a big presence and a loud mouth, don’t you forget it,” she joked back and they laughed.

“What were you thinking about?” he asked quietly as they stood in line at the pick-up bar.

The sound of the machine squealed as ultra elite indie music played over the speaker system. She was grateful that top hits wouldn’t play in this location because she couldn’t withstand listening to that song again.

“Gillian?” he asked quietly.

“I was just thinking about our history,” she told him honestly and he nodded. “The last year wasn’t my best…”

“I know you had some disappointments to work through,” he said referring to the fact that she had shopped for apartments in town then had to stop. That was hard on both of them. “I don’t blame you for that part.”

The blame wouldn’t be on her when she was promised one thing in regards to her children and geography but another agreement was reached. She wanted to move to New York, put her boys in a school here and fly them back to see their dad every other month. It was working out until her ex changed his mind and wouldn’t budge. That was a hard disappointment to overcome.

“Mark said-”

“I know,” he cut her off. “I’m sorry too.”

He never apologized when she said it was done between them. What he was sorry for was not leaving the states like he offered. He wasn’t able to pack up his bicoastal life and move to London. He loved it there, appreciated visiting when he could but he was trying to outdo his father in every aspect so he wasn’t able to leave the USA full time.

“Half sweet toffee nut Americano with room and a green tea matcha for Mulder!” the barista called.

David walked around the woman in front of them and picked up the drinks. “You guys got any stoppers there?”

The barista glanced up at David’s face and recognized him even with a pair of aviators. He handed two green stoppers to David and smirked at him, “You’re funny.”

“That’s what she says,” he quipped as he gestured over his shoulder to Gillian who was watching the exchange in confusion.

Gillian took the coffee from him and walked over to the station where the half and half waited for her.

“I’m surprised you didn’t put it under Hank,” she muttered as he walked up beside her to put honey in his latte.

“I like ordering as Mulder,” David confessed with a smile and rubbed a hand up her back. “I tried to put it under Scully but the girl didn’t believe me I was Dana Scully on the X-Factor.”

She laughed. “Okay, funny man. Can we leave?”

He kissed the top of her head over the toque and gave her arm a squeeze. “Come on.”

She gave him a look. “ _Don’t_.”

“A little PDA won’t make the news,” he reminded her as he took her hand and she didn’t pull away. “You’re just some old nobody theatre actress and I’m a boring has-been writer.”

She sighed. “Aren’t we, though?”

Before they left the cafe he put his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out another knitted hat. “Hey, look at that.”

He pulled on her hand and they left the Starbucks with their fingers intertwined. She tried not to find him adorable and sweet while he was breaking the rules they had set out for this friendship. She felt her resolve breaking.


	2. Chapter 2

To say that the walk through Central Park with him in the middle of the day was lovely would be an understatement. It was comforting to be in his presence and wonderful to hold hands openly in a city that had been notorious for spying on them over the past two years. Her nerves that were frayed at the beginning of the afternoon felt less tattered, as though a balm had been rubbed over them. The time they had spent together so far felt just like last year.

Prior to her play debuting in Brooklyn, she had felt the anonymity she craved in her younger years in Los Angeles when she had red hair. During the Streetcar run, she had been stopped on the street so often by fans and paparazzi hoping to catch a glimpse of her with a particular New York City based television co-star that she avoided outings such as this one.

Somehow that whole period their time overlapped in New York, they managed to avoid being spotted together and she credited the rules she had laid out for them. He called them a ridiculous endeavour, however they had managed to avoid unwanted rumours swirling when the focus was supposed to be on her performance and promoting his upcoming tour through Europe. He had reluctantly agreed and thankfully they were able to appreciate any off-hours spent in public under the radar of prying eyes.

The weather that day was mild and less bone-chilling than Vancouver or London. Among the buildings of the city and among the huddled masses of the busy sidewalks, it felt less cold and she felt like just another faceless person in the crowd of many. The toque, flat shoes and sunglasses helped her disguise. It was exactly what she needed after a weekend of having her picture taken, posing exactly so and ensuring she was smiling with her eyes as well as her mouth. That last part is harder than one might think.

As they entered the park, the temperature felt cooler. He pulled his hand from hers and wrapped his arm around her shoulders so casually as though this was just an everyday occurrence for them. It was anything but. Aside from award show red carpets and events they were contractually obligated to appear at, walking through a city park was not something they had the pleasure of doing together very often. As an actor, she wanted to do work she was proud of but she was never very good at playing the Hollywood games as he was. Just when she felt like she got a handle on it, the rules changed or a new form of oversharing came out and she had to decide whether she could navigate that. She never could master it the way he did. Her mind didn’t work in sound bites of 140 characters or less. Her jokes didn’t translate the ways his did because sarcasm somehow worked better than the teasing she tried to do. She had tried to explain before that the people who knew her would say ‘ _oh that’s just Gillian_ ’ while those who didn’t get her humour would stand in shock as she moved on to the next thing in her brain.

It occurred to her that he had still been talking and her mind had zoned out from completely listening. Her mind focused on contracts and time constraints.

“Wait, what?” she asked as she stopped on the pathway under the 65th Street Transverse. “Are you talking about episodes for the show?”

He looked down at her under the brick archway and the black wrought iron gates behind them as they stood in the middle of the path. “I’ve been trying to tell you we can make it work for your schedule.”

“Did you ask me to lunch to convince me to do another season?” she asked warily as she stepped away from him and he shook his head. It was her attempt to create distance between them but she wasn’t sufficient to keep herself warm. She wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered at the loss of his body heat. “ _Fuck_.”

Gillian stepped back towards him and he put his arms around her as she did the same. As she pushed her face into the slick material of his jacket and holding her drink in one hand, the other dipped into the back pocket of his jeans without even thinking.

Looking up to his face, she saw an unsureness in his eyes. She pulled her hand back from his jeans, away from the curve of his ass and slipped it under his shirt to his hot skin.

“Your fingers are like fucking icicles!” he declared and she laughed at his discomfort. They struggled slightly but he managed to pull her hand from under his jacket to his mouth. He brought her cold digits to his lips and blew on them with the hot air of his breath. As their eyes remained locked on each other, he squeezed them with his hands and kissed the fingers tenderly. “Better?”

She nodded as her eyes flickered down to his lips and cursed the lower heels that prevented placing a kiss on his mouth. She wasn’t supposed to be doing that to him anymore. Friends who didn’t have sex probably don’t embrace in the frigid air while walking to someone’s apartment to get belongings and finalize a ‘break up’ but here they were.

Time and time again, they told each other it was enough and they had to stop. Hormones and amazing sex aside, being together often hurt other people and their guilt weighed on them in different ways. He could be glib, flippant and distant about all of it after they were done. Too often she felt sad or the fulfilment was fleeting. Not to say that he used her because it was completely and utterly mutual. Their sexual encounters were initiated by her just as often as him. There was a magnetic attraction to him that went against all reason.

“I’m not trying to convince you,” he said finally as his eyes flickered down to her mouth and she wondered if he was thinking about kissing her too. “I’m not making the show without you and I said I want us to find something that works for everyone.“

“I can’t commit to ten months in Vancouver,” she explained and he nodded in understanding. “I can’t take the boys-”

“I understand,” he interrupted and squeezed her to him a little tighter.

She felt guilty about not being available for more episodes. The self-reproach was not directed toward the network because the more she was able to work meant the more she would gain monetarily. Her agent already knew to not even begin discussions until they were told what David was getting and to demand exactly that.

This was the ugly side of show business that included the intrusions into her life and the demands on her body to remain a specific way that people declared defied all logic.

She pushed her chin into his chest and it clenched as she tried to think of why this felt like she was letting him down. “I’m cold.”

“I’m not calling a cab to drive us to my place,” he said as he took her hand and put it into his pocket. They started walking and she looked up at him questioningly. “It would take an hour by cab and maybe another twenty five minutes if we walk. You’ve been in London too long.”

She frowned slightly then took a sip of her coffee. “I walk or take the bus in London, thank you.”

That was mostly true.

“I thought you drove that overpriced Range Rover,” he teased.

That was also the truth.

“ _Sometimes_ ,” she said lightly and he gave her side a squeeze. “I have more fuel-efficient cars too that would appease your energy saving soul.”

"Your grandchildren will thank you for cleaner air," he retorted.

"Don't say that word," she said holding up her hand. "I'm not ready to be anyone's grandmother."

"Of course. I meant in like fifty years when you're truly old like me," he teased. She laughed at that. He tried to keep the momentum they had going through the park. “Well don’t stop those little legs now. We’ve still got to pass by the lake and that’s romantic as fuck. So I’d like to hurry if we can.”

“Romantic as fuck?” she repeated and laughed again.

“Yeah, I can’t look at that lake and not think of picnics in rowboats and shit,” he muttered and she laughed again. “Stop laughing at me.”

She bit her lip and stifled a giggle. He was funny when he was being salty and realistically bitter toward the ways of their relationship. She didn’t know if he knew that one of the most endearing qualities about him was how he could sound disappointed and curse at the way a sunrise was beautiful.

Around 1999, during a night shoot, he said that the orange in the sky reminded him of a suit she had on in the first season. It was a strange thing for him to remember and she told him so. She pointed out that the hue in the sky was a rust colour and the suit she wore was more of a brown rust. He looked at her quizzically as he said the streams of sunlight peeking through the clouds gave her a halo. He told her it was a little unfair how she could look so fucking beautiful after being up all night. He pushed her into the backseat of a sedan with his body expressing his desire for her moments later. Before it became another moment of regret, they stopped themselves because it was wrong to be so reckless with so much at stake.

They blamed moments like those on exhaustion and the inability to think clearly above their hormones. Moments like those were not as few and far between during the original run of the show as people might suspect. If they were able to act on screen with personalities that countered their own, they could certainly fake their way through awkwardness and discourse.

Not being able to be together usually created an angry tension between them on set. It made the worst parts of themselves come out. The competitive nature of two people who should be there for each other as a support team but couldn’t because it opened the doors of affection and, worse, lust. Amazing how when they spent any time together as friends, their hormones found a way to ruin a perfectly nice moment.

“When we walk past the lake, I could tell you all the things that really make me mad about you,” she offered and took another sip from her coffee. “Maybe pour some salt on the wound to tell you ways you didn’t satisfy me as a lover?”

He laughed. “You know that only makes me want to prove how I can do better.”

She felt her cheeks flush. It didn’t discourage him when she pushed him away or told him she didn’t want him. The man might want to walk away from a scene they did a shitty job at but if you told him he didn’t make you come, he jumped back in like a trooper and did what he could to get you there.

“Do you work as hard at other things as you do at getting a woman to come?” she teased and a woman walking past them looked up from her phone with a disgusted look on her face. Gillian almost opened her mouth to say something more crass but David pulled on her shoulder to keep her walking. “ _What_?”

“I know what you’re thinking and don’t,” he said. “Right now we’re just two gross people having a private conversation in public which is normal for New York. If you yell at her, then you’re a crazy nobody theatre actress she can sell the story to TMZ for at a few thousand dollars. She had her phone out, she could get video too.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” she cursed with more emphasis.

“Why are you so scrappy today?” he asked as they continued on the path.

She looked down at their feet and finished her drink. “I feel punchy after too much time on an airplane and no decompression.”

He gave her arm another squeeze and kissed the top of her head. He pulled back quickly. “Should I stop doing that?”

“No…” she said quietly as she shook her head. She stepped away from him so she could throw out her paper cup. “I don’t mind it.”

He walked toward the trash bin where she stood. He discarded his own cup, pulled his aviator sunglasses off then took hers from her face. His wild green eyes with one enlarged pupil looked into her so completely and it felt unnerving. He always saw everything she wanted to hide and knew the tricks she used to keep her cards close to her chest. Sure, after twenty four years, he could still be surprised by her but had a playbook on her that felt frustrating at times. Other times it felt comforting in its constraints. She had a lot of complicated feelings about their history that was a labyrinth of tangled messes and lies.

Maybe what drew her to Peter was how little he really understood about her. He spent the last twenty years married to European royalty. Gillian, with all her knowledge of how to behave around the royal family, appreciated the ability to let her hair down and laugh at a good dick joke. That side of her personality quickly stopped being charming and became a thing to be embarrassed by. She hated the look from a rigid Brit who couldn’t laugh at something outright silly.

At the same time, she wasn’t sure where things were leading with the British writer. The relationship would be good for her career if he thought she could bring an audience to her projects. He called her often, asked her to lunches and meetings but they had yet to consummate anything. The man was able to express his desire for her and she felt drawn to him in ways that mirrored past relationships. He was smart, driven and successful but he wasn’t clear on what he wanted from her. They had shared a few tender kisses, he would place a light touch on her knee but he refrained from holding her hand in the darkness of a theatre audience. Maybe it was best that things between them were mostly professional and not as messy as they could potentially be. The man had a lot more hang ups than she did and as quickly as they seemed endearing, they could also be quite off-putting.

“Gillian,” David started sincerely with the sound of flies buzzing at the rubbish bin next to them and people walking past. “I can’t stress to you enough how much I regret wearing these jeans.”

She stepped back from him and looked down at the slight tear at his knee. The air bit at the skin that was exposed on her face and neck and she realized he must be cold with the draft in his pants. The man had zero body fat to conserve energy.

There wasn’t anything uptight or rigid about this man in front of her who used to take himself far too seriously. So much about him put her at ease while remaining a constant comfort and friend to her. If she was going to compare him to Peter, she would say of course he was kinder, sweeter and more thoughtful. He had a fondness for being able to relax and he could appreciate the silliness of talking farm animals trying to escape to Turkey for asylum for their lives. Only a man who felt like an actual animal to the Hollywood machine would relate to how a cow feels going to slaughter. She asked him how he was able to capture the voice of a young female cow so well and he held two fingers up to his lips as though he was smoking a joint. She liked his creative process.

“We should keep walking?”

“We should keep walking,” he repeated in confirmation.

Their hands met in the middle again and she took her sunglasses back from his other hand to hide her face a little more. If this ended up in an online tabloid, she would have a lot to explain to more than just her kids who never understood their friendship.

“Are we friends?” she asked as they approached the lake.

He looked through the tree line and then down to her as they continued their pace. “What else would we be?”

She kept walking and watched the people around her. “Well…”

“I can’t not be friends with you Gillian,” he told her quietly. “Even when…”

He pushed his mouth into the toque on her head and she felt his lips mutter something but she couldn’t hear him.

“Pardon?”

“I’ll take a friendship with you over not having you around,” he said. "Even if I don't understand all the rules."

“I just don’t want my career to be continually defined by some aspect of my personal life,” she confessed. “It would be enough if you could pick and choose what aspects people are privy to but they want it all.”

“That’s showbiz, kid,” he quipped and gave her fingers another squeeze. “Apparently your rights as a human are completely stripped away once the publicist enters your employment.”

“I understand why that is but this profession should allow for off-hours to be just that,” she said thoughtfully. “At least in Vancouver, we had more of a bubble. Or we weren’t as big of stars as they told us we were.”

“Not a total bubble,” he reminded her and she recalled the paparazzi photos they got of her and Piper at a playground. “Like a London bubble.”

“London _is_ easier,” she admitted. “But then again, I’m just an aging nobody theatre actress.”

“I say that with the love and kindness a boring writer, has-been actor and wannabe musician can deliver,” he defended lightly.

If he made fun of himself and admitted he was an amateur, you couldn’t continue to rag on him for trying. He was putting out a lot of effort to prove that failing at something that didn’t come naturally to you wouldn’t kill you. And yet he was succeeding due to the fandom that he eventually accepted after years of looking down his Ivy League educated nose at them. The snobbish side of his personality definitely helped cool her hormones when she worried she was going to do something rash. Nothing like an uptight, snobbish prick to cool the loins.

That snobbish side of him had grown up to be someone humble, more thoughtful and aware of the ups and downs that showbiz can have. He thought the trajectory for a man with his height and deadpan wit would only be up. For her, it felt like a struggle every god damned day and she questioned what she was doing it for every morning when she was unsure of her worth.

“You keep calling yourself boring. Do you think you are?” she asked.

She wasn’t used to his vulnerable side peeking through while they still had all their clothes on.

“Of course I worry I’m boring because I have teenagers that remind me I am,” he replied. “Don’t you ever get told you’re boring?”

She nodded. “Frequently. No one likes a teetotaler.”

“That’s a fancy word,” he noted.

“I use that instead of ‘person in recovery’ because that and all its connotations make people uncomfortable,” she muttered as they continued along. “Plus… I don’t know if it was ever as much an addiction as it was something I was too fond of.”

“Thank god for pot,” he quipped and they both laughed. “You got anymore of those chocolates lying around?”

She patted her purse. “I might have a few.”

His hand reached around to the arm that carried her bag to pretend to grab it. “Well if we’re going to do this whole uncomfortable mess of a day, the _least_ you could do is get me high.”

They stopped on the pathway and she reached into her bag to pull out the wrapped chocolate with brown paper and identifiable leaf under the white tab.

“Vanilla chai?” she offered like a sales girl might offer samples of perfume or taste testing foods. With one square of the laced confectionary in her fingers, she could smell the spice and chocolate immediately.

As though it was the only option, he pulled her hand up to his mouth and took a bite.

“Not the whole square?” she questioned as she popped the other half into her mouth.

“I don’t want to end up naked on my porch in January,” he retorted with a laugh. “Probably wouldn’t last through the night out there.”

“You never told me that,” she laughed as she tucked the chocolate back into her bag.

She licked the melted bits off her fingers and they shared a smile that spoke toward intent and longing between them. She felt the familiar belly flip that preceded any decisions she used to make regarding getting naked with him. It went down through her body like a good drink of whiskey - what she remembered of it - and warmed her up in the ways she liked.

“I did so. I called you after I ate two of them and said they were shit,” he reminded her and they continued walking.

“I don’t think you told me you were naked,” she replied as they continued up the path and eventually onto Central Park West.

All of the barriers that she had up earlier that day were down and she felt them falling back into old patterns. They were flirting shamelessly, touching openly and discussing the future as though they would obviously be involved with each other. The declaration they were friends was similar to what they agreed upon after she got married. They slipped up eventually, the affair continued and she spent months torturing herself for something he only mildly felt concerned about.

He told her at the time that their activities didn’t change her marriage and she knew deep down the cracks were there with or without another man in her bed. There was the controlling nature of her first husband and his flippant disregard to the machine of Hollywood. He had been clear about his desire to remain in Vancouver whether the show moved or not knowing full well her costar was trying to get them to Los Angeles. Her first husband didn’t care for parties, award shows or the glitz and glamour that was required. No matter what her contract said, he was sure she could blow off a photo shoot for a family picnic and she told him, that of all the things he was, naive and stupid shouldn’t be two of them.

She looked across the street where the ash grey brick buildings disrupted the tranquillity of the park. To her left were the street vendors selling questionable meats and she thought if they were to come upon them in the next twenty minutes, she would give all the money in her purse for one of the nitrate-filled hot dogs on a sugary white bun. She wasn’t there yet.

Ten minutes later she was and the smell of the hot dogs on the street tantalized her olfactory senses. Getting the munchies wasn’t her first side effect from the chocolate but perhaps the light lunch, the walk through the park and the company made her ravenous. If she couldn’t have something else in her mouth, a hot dog would have to do.

“You got any cash on you?” she asked as she approached the silver cart with a display of toppings and side dishes.

He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a fifty. “Can you break that?”

The vendor shook his head and David cursed.

“Oh wait!” Gillian cried and reached into her jacket pocket. She pulled out an American twenty dollar bill. “I never have cash on me but today, we are blessed.”

“This is a good omen,” he said as he held up two fingers. “Two dogs?”

“Two?” she asked.

“Don’t tell Elsie,” he said as he held a finger up to her lips and she laughed. “Two dogs.”

The vendor placed two freshly steamed hot dogs from the rolling pins that warmed the meat into white doughy buns. He pointed at the toppings in his cart.

“Should we be five-year-olds and just get ketchup and mustard?” David asked her.

“Yes! We’ll be purist all beef hot dog consumers,” she replied and burst into a fit of giggles.

The vendor handed Gillian her change and she put the ten dollar bill in the tip jar for him. He thanked her and she blew an air kiss before squeezing a wonderful amount of ketchup on the meat.

“You’re a good tipper for a street meat vendor,” David noted as they carried their food down the street.

“Food service is hard, often times thankless and the people who do it are deserving of tips,” she replied. “You never worked as a waiter have you?”

“I never learned another language,” he reminded her as they approached his street. “What makes you think I have the stamina for a serving?”

“It takes _a lot_ of humility.”

“I did not have that when I was looking for work,” he admitted.

“We both know that,” she told him and he nodded ruefully.

She laughed at the thought of him in an apron and listening to people complain about things beyond his control. French fries that went cold while the customer ate their burger as though it was somehow under the server’s control that the room temperature wouldn’t keep hot food hot.

The vision of a young David serving food in a cafeteria suddenly hit her and she laughed harder. Her high from the laced chocolate began to whoosh, for lack of a better word, through her body and she no longer felt cold.

“Stop laughing at me unless you’re laughing at something else,” he said loudly and a few people turned around at the stop light to look at him. “She’s laughing at me.”

With their hot dogs, chips and canned pop in hand, they looked like they could be anyone from anywhere. Certainly two celebrities would not be caught dead eating a hot dog from “Vik’s Meat” cart. Especially with their rocky past, they would have formal lunches and coffees in private hotel suites.

Sometimes the best thing was when no one though you were coming and you could be just another human having an experience.

“I like the idea of you in food service,” she laughed and wiped at her right eye that threatened a tear when she thought anything was too funny. “Rubber sole shoes, a hairnet and an apron.”

“If music, acting and writing fail me, I might have to get into that game,” he muttered. “Did you have to wear a hairnet?”

“No but I had a personality that was suited for waitressing,” she countered. “Can you make five to ten tables happy at a time while refraining from telling them to fuck off?”

“At a time?” he repeated loudly and she laughed again. “I can’t even please two women at a time.”

He laughed too and the giggles part of their collective high had definitely begun. As they approached his building, the desire to eat her hot dog became overwhelming and she opened the silver foil wrapper to take a healthy bite. She chewed slowly on her bite of food and felt frustrated she didn’t have someplace to put it so she could take a drink of her pop. The struggle was real.

_People said that, right?_

He was standing at the door to his building and watching her as she looked between the items in her hand.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he tucked his sunglasses into his jacket pocket.

She stuck out her lower lip and pulled off her sunglasses. She tucked them in the outside pocket of her purse. He gave her the questioning look again and she sighed. “I want to eat all of this at the same time!”

He laughed again and escorted her into the building. The doorman nodded at them and Gillian waved the hand that held her pop can at him exaggeratedly. They were still laughing as they got into the elevator and she felt relieved to see that they were alone.

She set her pop can and bag of chips at her feet and took the wrapper slowly off the hot dog. Each bite tasted more heavenly than the last. Her stomach felt the appreciation of something so unlike the kale and spinach salads it was used to. This was her body appreciating something bad. Each bite tasted better on her tongue.

“Oh my god,” she moaned as she swallowed another bite. “This is so _fucking_ good!”

She looked up to see him holding the unwrapped hot dog, a bite taken from it but his chewing halted.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Are you having vegetarian’s remorse?”

David chewed a few purposeful bites and slowly shook his head. His eyes remained locked on hers. “No.”

She looked down at the last two bites of her hot dog and decided it would be a nice treat to have some later. She wrapped the silver foil around the remainder of her food and picked up her coke and chips from next to her feet.

When she looked up to him, he was still watching her mouth and she recognized the look of hunger and want in his eyes. Her cognitive brain was slightly fuzzy and her body was feeling tingly from the chocolate. She wanted another taste of the infused confection but the part of her brain that was still cognizant was aware her guard was lowered.

_This was a bad idea._

He swallowed what was in mouth and wiped at the edges of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re unfair.”

She ate two of her chips at a time and contemplated what he meant. She wondered why she wasn’t offended. “Why?”

“This is all very unfair to me,” he said and he reached his hand into the bag to steal one of her chips. He pointed them at her as he spoke. “You don’t play fair. I'm in a zero sum situation and you're eating hot dogs.”

He shoved the chips in his mouth and chewed while she contemplated what he was talking about.

“You feel it’s unfair, you mean,” she replied finally.

“No, it just is this way,” he corrected her. “It’s not that I feel it and my feelings are valid or some bullshit. It is unfair.”

She pouted a little and wanted the giggly high back from her chocolate treat. This solemn side to their afternoon should have come later while they looked at the items he insisted she come back to his apartment for.

“We’re not moving,” she noticed.

“What?” he asked and glanced around them in the elevator car.

“You didn’t press the button,” she told him as she looked up at the M glowing on the elevator console.

She pointed at the lack of buttons lit up near him and he swore under his breath. He poked the correct number to reach his floor and then looked back at her. She reached into her bag and broke off another square of the vanilla chai Bryan brought for her when she was in LA. She loved thoughtful friends and she contemplated eating the whole square to herself. She ate half and then offered the other half to him again. He leaned down and took her fingers and the chocolate in his mouth. His tongue lapped at the pad of her thumb before he released them.

“That’s unfair,” she said as she watched him chew on the confection.

“It’s unfair all the rules and shit you put on us over the last three and a half years,” he snapped and took the bag of chips from her.

Weed was supposed to make you more mellow and she told him that.

“Sorry to kill your buzz,” he retorted and the doors opened to his floor.

He stuffed the last of the chips into his mouth before pulling on her jacket sleeve. Wordlessly, she followed him while forgetting about the pop at her feet until the doors had closed on them.

“Oh no, I wanted that! Oh no!” she cried and pushed on the arrow down button. The elevator was already descending and she waved sadly at the doors. “Bye.”

“I have soda in my apartment,” he reminded her and she suddenly felt less sad. She turned around to face him and followed him inside. “Shoes off.”

She looked down at her feet and grabbed onto his arm as she balanced to shed her boots. David shed his with the tried and true method of heel against toe. His Converse shoes that were not at all practical for the winter weather were pushed onto a little mat by the door. She put her boots next to his then looked at her hand that was still holding onto his arm and she retracted it.

As they walked into the living space, she noted it was tidier than the last time she visited. He took her jacket from her after he shed his own and placed them on the bench at the front door. She took off the toque he loaned her and as she fluffed out her hair, he tucked them both back into the pockets of his down jacket.

“It’s clean in here,” she said as she made her way through the apartment and into his kitchen.

“I have a cleaning lady,” he reminded her.

“I mean… it’s tidier in here,” she restated. “Did you clean up because I was coming over?”

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to say yes,” he replied automatically and shook his head. He got a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the refrigerator door water system. “I was probably anxious.”

“To see me?” she asked and he shrugged. She crossed the space that separated them and took the glass from him. She took a long drink and set the empty glass on the counter behind him. “Why am I unfair?”

“You know, in all the years we got together and ended things, we never had a breakup conversation before,” he reminded her and she looked down to her hands that were now on his hips. “You can’t do that if you’re just my friend. I asked a woman I’ve never slept with how to behave around women I can’t sleep with and she gave me a list of things we’re not supposed to do.”

“Who would you be friends with and not sleep with?” she asked as though this was still the 90s and his urges were less controlled.

“Many women,” he told her with a mock seriousness that made her laugh. “But if you must know, she was my therapist.”

Gillian nodded as she understood. As if he had prepared for that moment, he pulled out an old receipt from his back pocket but on the blank side of it, she saw his messy handwriting that was a mix of all caps letters and cursive writing. “Number one: No kissing on the lips.”

“You didn’t kiss me hello,” she reminded him and kept her hands on his sides anyway. “You used to do that no matter where we were. Or who we were with or what was going on...”

He looked up from his list that he held up at the perfect distance for his eyes to be able to make out the writing. She thought he probably memorized it regardless and the note was a prop because he likes to be right and slightly dramatic. He looked at her face and his mouth descended upon hers for the most chaste kiss they had ever shared. She watched his eyes for a moment and he kissed her again.

The kisses became open to each other. Tongues slid past teeth and she could feel the buzz from her whole body begin to actually vibrate inside her. The hand that wasn’t holding the paper slipped down to cup her ass and she whimpered into his open mouth. The hand holding the paper moved to her head and she heard the crinkle as his fingers dropped the list and the kiss became fervent and passionate.

There was an obvious hardness pressing into her belly and she wanted to rub herself against it. This wasn’t the position to do that. She wanted to rub her body against his and feel the lean muscles that he developed through boxing and yoga. The man had not an ounce of body fat on him and it was all due to healthy eating and regimented exercise. The affect from living in Los Angeles and New York kept him aware of his body or maybe that was because softer fifty-year-old actors were given the ‘dad’ or the ‘uncle’ part but never the love interest part. David liked being the leading man who got to kiss women inappropriately too young for him.

More than once, he told her that the most frustrating part of filming such tight shots with her was that the instinct to kiss her after whispering about theories was wrong. He knew why Mulder and Scully were supposed to be romantic but he couldn’t change the way he looked at her.

The way he looked at her was much like he kissed her. He would devour her if she allowed it and her body was telling her mind to let go.

The hand at her ass slid up her back and under the hemline of her blue sweater and camisole. The kissing became so fervent he spun her around and pushed her into the counter. His legs worked their way between hers and suddenly she was on the counter next to the glass. He was pulling her toward the edge and spreading her legs apart to nestle himself in the centre where she felt the familiar throbbing for his presence.

His mouth found her lips again and they kissed for what felt like hours in the way a good book can wrap you up and whisk you away. Open yourself to one page and the entire afternoon is lost in a world that isn’t your own. Sex with this man between her thighs was exactly like a captivating book. There was a basis of characters set out, them, and a struggle before reaching the climax. Their anticlimax was always bittersweet. Reality came crashing in and they never seemed to find an ending to this repetitive storyline. There was a fantasy of them playing out in her mind as her legs wrapped around his waist and they continued to taste each other.

Eventually, his mouth left hers and he whispered into the skin on her neck, “This isn’t supposed to happen between friends.”

The feeling of his teeth nipping at the nerves under her alabaster flesh went straight to her core and deep in her belly. A moan escaped her lips as his tongue bathed the freshly marked places on her body. The way that his touch and his teeth marked her skin made her thighs shake. She dug her heels into his back to pull him closer. It wasn’t possible but the hardness in his jeans rubbed against her centre. It was exactly the kind of friction she wanted and craved. He kissed her like she desired and he touched her with the knowledge of where the spots on her body were that needed a firm grip or a tender hand.

He thrust against her once and she cried out. “I dropped my list but I have the other things…”

She opened her eyes to see him watching her with fascination and half sorrow. She managed to ask, “What are they?”

“They don’t…” he pushed his body against hers and sighed. “Friends who don’t sleep together don’t touch inappropriately.”

She looked at him questioningly and reached her hand between them. Without thinking her hand slipped between their bodies, down his sweater and into his jeans were the hot flesh of his desire waited for her. It was stuck to his belly and she carefully peeled it away to stroke it once.

“I can’t do this anymore?” she asked.

There was a haze in her head that overpowered the voice that told her no, you idiot woman you can’t jerk off a guy in his kitchen while he tries not to give you hickeys. Grow up.

Her hand continued to move on its own accord and she wondered if that other chocolate was a good idea with the jet lag and need to be near him. Her body didn’t care about all the rules her head made up about them. Her body wanted him to fuck her senseless in that kitchen or on his couch or in his bed. She didn’t give a shit where but she wanted him.

What a far cry from the apprehension she had only hours before.

David groaned and he pushed into her hand. “No… No Gill. Friends don’t do this…”

She squeezed slightly and he pushed his face into her neck to breathe slowly. Her hand stroked the flesh she loved the taste of and appreciated the invasion of into her body time and time again. This was a wonderful feeling to hold him in her hand when she had worried about them since their last meeting.

This was wrong but her body wouldn’t stop. Her reasoning mind was on vacation and hormones, habit and need took over.

“What else is on the list?” she asked.

“No sexual acts of any kind…” he said slowly and watched her face.

She pulled her hand from his jeans and they shared a frown. “None…”

“None,” he confirmed and they both took a long calming breath.

She pushed on his chest and slid off the counter so she could get herself another glass of water. She glanced down the bulge in his dark jeans that was so obviously about her. Over the years, there had been sexual responses from him she brushed off because they were physical and not emotional but they were at the stage in their lives when it was all of the above.

A lyric from his music popped into her head and she laughed before she took a sip of her water.

“What?” he asked and took the glass from her to take a sip.

“My head just quoted your song,” she laughed the stopped abruptly. “Wait… you said none of the above. Never mind.”

“Oh damn,” he said. “What was all of the above?”

“Sexual, physical, emotional or-” she began.

“All of the above,” he finished and nodded once. “We’re not supposed to have that either.”

“Okay!” she replied sarcastically as to say ‘like that’s so easy’. He got her meaning right away. “What else is on your list?”

He knelt down and picked up the worn piece of paper. “No kissing on the mouth. No sexual touching. No physical, emotional, sexual or romantic responses to one another.”

“Do you switch it off like a faucet?” she asked honestly.

He looked at her like she was daft. “You told me it was over. _You_ ended things.”

She wiped at the edges of her mouth. “Because we can’t keep doing this!”

“I told you in August, I love you no matter what the situation is,” he reminded her. “Even when you meet pretentious whiney writers that can help you further your career more. I’d like to have some semblance of self-respect but apparently…”

“ _Stop_ acting like I’ve fucked you up,” she retorted acerbically.

“I never said you did,” he replied and he rubbed his hands up and down his face. “I’m fucked up all on my own as much as you are. I just told you how I felt and you have to decide- actually you did decide that you didn’t want me.”

“I do want you!” she cried. “I just wanted… fuck I don’t know!”

He took a step back and adjusted himself in his jeans. Her tongue darted out of her mouth instinctively and she licked at her bottom lip before dragging her top teeth across the swollen flesh.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped. “You’re the coward. You’re the one who couldn’t be in the open.”

She couldn’t argue. It was the truth. Her own hang ups about how to describe their relationship was a major issue.

He didn’t want to hurt everyone in their lives by admitting this had been an ongoing affair for over twenty four years and he concocted a lie they could emphatically describe without ruining everyone. Except the newspapers, the magazines and the web bloggers would push further, ask more and try to get the truth. She was horrible with lies and preferred to live in evasive tactics of carefully constructed stories that told exactly what was true while avoiding the entirety of it.

“You’re a fucking coward. I’ve been walking around for the last six months with my heart broken-”

“Six months?”

“You think I can’t tell when someone is trying to leave me, Gillian?” he shouted at her. “You’re not the first.”

He walked out of the kitchen and she was left behind feeling a throbbing in her loins that could not have been less appropriate than when she felt herself getting excited for the potential kiss scene in their first movie. Except they made out and he kissed her like she liked to be kissed. She slipped him the tongue and he picked her up like he had in private more than once or twice. It was too easy to blur the lines between a joke and a desire they had since he got married.

They really knew how to do some shitty things to each other and one of them was the sexual desire warfare they played while surrounded by underpaid crew that could blab at any moment that she needed a change of nylons between takes.

She followed him into the living room with the list in her hand. “No meaningful gifts that could be misconstrued as romantic.”

He handed her the small box he insisted she come back for. Inside a Puma shoe box laid items she had left there. A T-shirt she liked, earrings, perfume and make up, a scarf and a box with a familiar logo on it.

“This isn’t mine,” she said and handed the box to him.

“I was going to give you this at Christmas,” he started as he held the box between his fingers. “But I didn’t want to hold onto this and possibly not see you.”

She felt her resolve break and she sat down heavily on the couch that he had tasted every inch of her, played her songs and told her that he bought her something sort of romantical for her birthday.

That summer, in the quiet of her home in another city in a northern country, he told her what the purpose was behind the rose gold necklace he was wrapping around her wrist.

_“One link in the chain for every time I should have put a ring on your finger and asked you to be more than just my adult friend,” he said as he secured the clasp. “I’ll try to be better from here on out.”_

He kissed her arm after he fastened the necklace around her wrist and looked at her with a promise in his eyes they could start something bigger than what they had.

Of course, faced with the possibility to be happy, she completely panicked.

Her heart wouldn’t let her take the bracelet off even though her mind had made up that continuing to live by the rules she had laid out wasn’t working for them anymore. He had a different argument at the time.

Today as they stood in front of each other, he didn’t ask why she still wore the necklace. His kisses had brushed against it as it was tucked under her camisole and between her breasts. He must have seen it during their encounter in the kitchen or when she leaned forward at lunch but he had yet to comment on it.

If this was nineteen years ago, he would have left the question hanging in the air before making a biting remark about it before she left him. He was a much more evolved person now and liked to hash out their feelings to clear the air. Sometimes it was therapeutic but other times it was a god damned exercise in ensuring she didn’t think of him as a bad guy anymore.

He sat next to her on the couch and opened the box. “I wanted you to have something to go with it when you wore it as a necklace.”

Inside was a set of moonstone bangles set in the same rose gold as the necklace. There were four bracelets stacked on top of each other and a pair of rose gold, pear-shaped cut out earrings. It was just exactly her taste and she felt her heart breaking entirely.

“Why would you give me this?” she asked him as she touched the jewellery that laid tenderly inside the box. “Why-”

“Gillian, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “I love you. You can back out from this, act like a coward but I love you.”

“Not enough,” she muttered as she looked down at the items inside. She replaced the lid on the box and handed it back to him. “It wouldn’t be right-”

“I don’t care,” he said and held up his hands to avoid taking the box back from her. “And I did love you enough. You couldn’t be public and blame it on me all you want but this is your shit.”

The tone of his voice was soft and stern at the same time. A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped at it angrily.

“Why are you crying? You didn’t have to get me anything, you know,” he told her. “The medicinal chocolate was enough.”

She stood up from the couch and felt suddenly angry at him. “This is unfair.”

“Pot meet kettle?” he retorted as he stood up also. “I thought after your brother died you were going to be more honest with yourself.”

She took the items from the shoe box but left the Irene Neuwirth box on the couch. “I have to go.”

Physically running away from an issue was not something she practiced in life. She liked to hash things out, clear the air and work through any issues just as much as he did. There she was, shoving her feet in her boots and ringing for the elevator as she struggled to get her coat on. He was dumbstruck for a moment but caught up to her quickly at the elevator doors before they closed.

He pushed his way inside and kicked her can of coke toward the wall of the elevator with his socked feet.

“Stop it,” he said as the doors closed but she was pushing the ground floor button.

She was vibrating as she stood in the car while keeping her eyes focused on anything but him.

His hand curled around her bicep and he pulled on her arm just slightly so that she turned her face slowly to his. The anger was bubbling inside both of them and she wanted to slap him.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she said as she tried to pull away but he pushed her into the wall of the elevator with his body. His mouth was inches from hers as her belongings fell to her feet. “Don’t you dare.”

Of course, if you said not to try, he would go out of his way to prove he could. She knew that, having the same personality trait herself. His mouth covered hers against her statement and she kissed him back. Their hands were pulling at clothing and she felt the ridges of his cock against her leg. She moaned as his hands cupped her ass to lift her in the air.

_What the fuck were they doing?_

His hips pushed into hers and she realized that she was being screwed with her pants on. If she returned to his apartment, he was right and she was a coward. If she left him in that elevator, she was a coward and cruel.

Maybe she was all of those things and what she was doing didn't make any sense. There was no win for her in this situation and she really would rather get what she wanted over giving in to prove he was right. He was right but she couldn’t admit that to herself or him just yet.

Her fingers scratched along his scalp and he broke the kiss to bite once on her neck. A long moan escaped her mouth and she realized this was the most public and risky behaviour they were supposed to be avoiding.

_Also, adult non-sexual friends didn’t dry hump in elevators, Gillian_ , her brain reminded her.

The ground floor dinged at their arrival and she pushed on his chest to fumble to the floor. She grabbed her belongings, the can of coke in the corner and clumsily made her way to the front door.

“I need a cab!” she called to the doorman and he exited the lobby to call out to one on the street.

David ran out to her in his stocking feet. The evidence of their encounter in the elevator was written all over their dishevelled appearance.

She had to get the fuck out of there.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he wiped at his mouth. “Where are you going?”

“I need to get back to the hotel, away from you and I need to think,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

She exited the front of his building and approached the cab where the doorman was holding the yellow door for her.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder but she realized he was hot on her heels. “David please, just let me have a minute?”

He grabbed the door to stop her from closing it on him. “Don’t leave like this.”

“Just… I need time!” she said and rubbed her hands across her face. “I need to get to the Plaza Hotel Athenee.”

The driver made a gesture to David and he let the door close. Gillian looked over her shoulder to see him watching her cab from the sidewalk for a moment. She turned forward on the seat and put her face in her hands. She began to cry and she didn’t stop until they reached her hotel street an hour and twenty minutes later.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The ache in her heart was self-induced from the all the shit she had put them through for the last few months. They had been stuck in a cycle of lies, frustration and half-truths that began on the Vancouver set of a low budget science fiction show that somehow gained an insane following. Due to the secretive nature of their boss, talking to the press about what was going on during the show was always full of rules and landmines she struggled to navigate.

She was naive enough to think that she could hide her feelings toward her tall, dangerous and handsome costar but too many candid pictures caught a look of fondness for him that she reserved for a lover. It was embarrassing to feel so incredibly called out by a magazine picture and yet she saw the look on his face too. It was fondness and affection that wasn’t there when he put on the mask of his spooky television alter ego.

Her family called her out on that enough. She tried to explain during photo shoots, there is a great deal of acting that’s done. Laying in bed in a black negligee between her boss and costar while smoking a cigarette was only acting and not a snippet from her life, no matter what the press might think. However, there was no acting involved when a candid photo was taken of them laughing together on set.

She put her sunglasses on before she exited the cab, giving the driver the last of the American cash she had on her and hurried inside the Plaza. The elevator only played instrumental music and she was glad for a reprieve from the lyrical onslaught of music that overwhelmed her in the car.

It was as though the radio was trying to remind her of the losses she had suffered. Her mind countered that she created the last chasm in her life by pushing David away. This was her issue and the music industry over the last year and a half had been working towards breaking her heart all over again from each song it released with emotional turmoil mirroring her own.

Why did everything sad or romantic have to remind her of all the things that were good about them?

“Do you ever hear a song lyric and think of us?” he asked as she turned the corner to her hotel room.

She slowed her pace as she walked down the hall and took in his appearance. He was standing casually against the wall near her door with a coffee in hand and his jacket unzipped with his scarf still around his neck. His other hand remained in his jacket pocket like they hadn’t spent the last two hours suffering something painful. Regardless, she could tell he was upset through the air of detachment he put on. She knew when he was acting too.

“Always,” she replied as she closed the short distance between them.

She pulled out the room key from her purse and opened her door. No matter what they were doing, it wasn’t appropriate for them to finish their conversation in a public hallway. After their almost very public fight on the street outside his apartment and the hundred other places they’ve almost been caught in intimate situations, the least they could do was talk privately.

“How did you beat me here?” she asked as she opened her door.

“I walked here,” he told her. He pulled the door behind him and looked down at her. “It took me thirty two minutes.”

“Did you run?” she asked.

“No,” he said with a smirk. “I didn’t stop for food. It goes a lot faster when I’m not walking at your pace.”

She made a face as she shed her jacket. “You’ve been waiting here for almost an hour?”

He watched as she took off her boots and pulled her phone from her bag to check her messages. When she looked up from the screen, he was taking off his jacket and shoes as well.

“Do you mind?” he asked and she shook her head. “You’ve got the heat cranked up in here. And to answer your question, no I wasn’t waiting here for almost an hour.”

He hung both their jackets in the small closet and placed his shoes next to hers inside. She took a spot on the couch adjacent to her bed and he took a seat at the opposite end. They stared at each other for a beat and she averted her eyes first, glancing down at her hands for some kind of answer to whatever questions his eyes were asking.

“How long have you been waiting?” she asked as she tucked one leg under her bottom.

“Not long. I had to get shoes and a coat before I could come over here,” he pointed out and she nodded. “I went upstairs and cursed my luck of all things to be in love with a woman who won’t have me. Then, after a few minutes, I decided I should come check on my friend.”

Her chin clenched and he reached across the space to wipe at her face. He noted, “You’ve been crying.”

The reason he mattered so much to her after all the shit they had put each other through was just exactly this gesture. Outside of the sex, apart from their work and leaving out the underlying history between them, they truly cared about each other. He was her friend for more of her life than not and you don’t just give up on someone when the problem isn’t toxicity or abuse. Between them, that was far from it. When you’ve been through addiction and shameful behaviour, giving up on the people who stayed with you through it wasn’t an option. He was worth the effort and he made her feel likewise. So few people in her life had that hold on her heart. Their relationship, for better or worse, was one of the most meaningful in her life.

She brushed a hand across each cheek and watched his eyes tell her how much he truly was concerned for her. That wasn’t acting or fake - she knew the difference between the man on screen and the man opening himself to her and trying to pull her heart back together.

“So what songs remind you of me?” she asked and she took a wavering breath.

Lately, her mind connected her relationship with him to the saddest ones she heard. Music about lovers that didn’t get it right or unrequited love that ended with broken hearts.

“All of them,” he told her softly.

“All of them?” she repeated.

This conversation mirrored a back and forth like the early days of Mulder and Scully and she wondered if he saw that too. Maybe she was just feeling nostalgic to when life was less and more complicated.

He shrugged. “I can’t hear a song that could possibly be about love and loss and not think of us.”

This was heavier than she was ready for and she needed some respite from the harsh truths they were discussing.

“Even Taylor Swift?” she joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Especially Taylor Swift,” he deadpanned and they shared a laugh. “Okay, if I’m being honest, maybe not Shake it Off or Blank Space.”

He always knew more about trending topics than she did. While she focused her attention to the plights of the downtrodden theatre, art found in galleries and museums whereas he saw what was going on with music and business. They really were two sides of a coin, yin and yang. Ironic he had a tattoo of the same thing on his body that he got while married to someone else.

“I didn’t know you even knew the titles of her music,” she confessed as she noticed the small box in his hands that he tried to give her at his apartment. “It makes sense that you do. Teenagers being what they are.”

“You’d be surprised how easy it is to bust into a karaoke dance off in your kitchen while food cooks,” he said emphatically.

“Oh I bet they love that,” she laughed.

“Oh god they hate it!” he laughed. “They need to accept the rhythm in my soul.”

Laughing at the ineptitude of being a parent felt good. There were few things that made people automatic friends. When she was younger, it was sharing in her displeasure of something with someone else - you hate this, I hate this, let’s hate this together! As she got older, it became more important to find people who challenged her and inspired her. The ‘fast friends’ she made were people who appreciated the beauty in the same things she did. As her fiftieth approached, laughter felt more important to her again.

“So, what song?” she asked with the curiosity of this nugget of information itching to come into light.

“That fucking Lady Gaga song,” he started and she nodded in understanding. The lyrics were so deeply sharp and poignant for them specifically. She remembered hearing it in November, crying a little and listening to it again. “I was wondering why I couldn’t find one good reason to get you to stay. I ended up hurting my own feelings contemplating on that a little too long.”

She made a face of sorrow and regret for him. Instinctively, she reached out to hold his hand. “That one hurt my feelings too.”

“I guess that’s why she’s so successful,” he commented and looked down where their fingers interlaced across the back of the couch.

“There aren’t a million reasons to stop this,” she said in reference to their affair. “There’s a poetic license she took with that lyric.”

He cleared his throat and nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she atoned earnestly and moved closer to him on the couch. “I was afraid.”

He looked relieved she admitted it.

“And I don’t want someone else,” she continued in reference to Peter. “I’m not sure why I entertained the thought. When it comes to you… I thought I could get over you but I’ve never been able to do that. I don’t know how to explain this feeling…”

“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered,” he said thoughtfully. He looked into her eyes and made a gesture that he understood her confusion. “This Side of Paradise.”

“Why does that feel like us?” she said carefully as she rubbed one finger across her lips. She looked up to him and saw him watching her mouth. “You don’t agree?”

“I think there’s no other way to describe us,” he commented and moved closer. He smirked and held up one finger. “I want to say something a little poetic and sappy but you’re going to make fun of me.”

Gillian pulled her hands back to her face and covered her eyes. “I won’t if I can’t see you.”

“I’ll make it a baseball reference,” he bartered. He pulled her fingers down and looked at her. “It’s like… we didn’t get a chance to play in the major leagues and I think if we had that chance when we were younger, we would have knocked it out of the park.”

She covered her face again, began to laugh and her embarrassment grew.

“We would have fucked it up and fizzled in four months,” she told him through her hands.

He made a disappointed face but conceded her point. “When would it have ever worked?”

“I think maybe 2015 but I fucked it up,” she reminded him with a heavy sigh.

He ran a hand down his face. “Okay, here’s one for you. Why did you say it’s never going to happen?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “When?”

“At Huffington Post,” he reminded her. “In 2013.”

“Oh!” she recalled and her cheeks flushed. She used her free hand to tuck the errant strands from her ponytail behind each ear. “I was… on the spot? You were still married?”

He nodded slowly. “Right… I just wanted to make sure we weren’t just acting that whole time.”

She felt uncomfortable dissecting their history when so much of it was convoluted. They never sat down and tried to define what they were and once they did, it seemed to fall apart. Times they tried to ask for more of each other only lead to hurt feelings and misunderstandings. These discussions emphasized that their timing was one thing they never got right. If she asked him for everything and he wasn’t ready, she would have to live through another heartache of a man who only loved her a little instead of completely.

“I like my life better with you in it,” she started. “The sex confuses a lot but doesn’t make my life any worse.”

“Do you ever think what our lives would have been like if we never slept together?” he asked with a slight smile.

She shook her head. “I don’t know? Maybe I would have resented parts of the work less but maybe it would have made other parts harder.”

“I feel like I’m at a point in my life where we could take it all on,” he started cautiously. “Just say fuck it and go for it.”

“I was too until the New York thing fell through…” she started and she shook her head.

She hated disappointments like that because they lingered and left her wondering what if.

“Don’t tell me this is all over geography,” he scoffed. She gave him a look to say of course and he rolled his eyes. “Gillian, if we were in the same city, who’s to say we would see each other consistently? Our line of work doesn’t exactly allow for a single city dwelling.”

She conceded his point again.

“I didn’t come here to convince you to take me back or let me back into your bed,” he started. “I have more self-respect than that.”

A quizzical eyebrow raised at that last statement and they both laughed.

“Okay, maybe I don’t but I’m not here to convince you to love me-”

“I do love you,” she interrupted and he put a hand across his mouth as the shock of that confession without him prompting blew him away. “What?”

“It’s just been a long time since you told me without me asking you to,” he told her quietly. His hand covered his mouth again and he shook his head. “I just thought I wasn’t giving you what you needed.”

Another tear fell down her cheek and she put her hands over her face. “I think you did and it scared me.”

“What?” he asked and pulled her hands away. “Gillian, what did you just say?”

She looked at his face and saw his confusion. “You scared me this summer.”

He looked taken aback. “Why?”

“I was presented with the ability to get what I wanted and needed from you,” she said as she looked down to his hands holding hers. “After all this time and I wasn’t prepared to have that. I wasn’t prepared to get what I wanted and face the consequences of what we’ve been doing. I’m a coward.”

His fingers around her wrists tightened and loosened their grip a few times. “You’re confusing the shit out me.”

She pulled her wrists from his grasp and took his hands in hers. “I’ve put you through a lot.”

He squeezed her fingers. “I might call it a wash from the heinous behaviour I put you through.”

He had a point. Over the last twenty some years there had been a number of things that were particularly cruel and she had somehow forgiven all of them. Maybe he could pardon this transgression.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” he said and she shook her head. “You didn’t react-”

“I kissed you,” she pointed out.

His face said ‘like it matters’ and she tilted her head to him. “Well does it matter when you weren’t ready for it? I’m usually better at reading what you want.”

“You read me just fine,” she said quietly and smiled slowly. “I just… the problem when I eat those chocolates is my mood can swing before I realize it and I was scared of what came next.”

“Well hopefully, you would,” he retorted sardonically laden with innuendo and she laughed. “But yeah if you were scared, then I was wrong.”

She scooted closer to him and settled herself under the crook of his arm that lay across the back of the couch. “I was wrong. I’ll say it a hundred times if you want but I was wrong. You didn’t force me into anything. I’ve never been coerced by you into sex. You’re a gentleman through and through and I’m grateful for you. It was me that fucked up this time.”

“Did those words taste bitter coming out?” he joked and she tried to pinch his leg playfully but the man had the skinniest legs of anyone she knew. “Hey! Don’t pinch the chicken legs!”

“I can’t get a grip on them anyway through your tight jeans,” she mumbled and he laughed again. “Is this confusing for you?”

She was referring to the cuddling they were now completely immersed in. He had his hand rubbing up her arm and she was playing with the bottom edge of his sweater. She looked up at him and his wild eyes told her more than she wanted to know.

“I’m not interested in using you for sex,” she told him and he laughed. “I’m not. I don’t think I could… after all you’ve done for me.”

“I appreciate not being treated like arm candy,” he joked.

“Who said that about you?” she tried to recall.

“W Magazine,” he said proudly. “It was quite the compliment to get that year aside from my nomination.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to work on something together that got nominations?” she asked wistfully.

He sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to get that from Chris…”

“A-ha!” she said as she sat up and pointed one intent finger at him.

He held up his hands in defence. “What a-ha?”

“You thought they were shitty too!” she accused. “J’accuse!”

“Would you stop quoting that episode!” he cried. “It makes me sad we didn’t get six like that!”

“And he broke us up!” she pointed out to him.

He shook his head. “He really had to punish me…”

“You think he sees us as them or he’s aware we’re different people than Mulder and Scully?” she asked him.

“I’m not even sure I know the difference sometimes,” he confessed. “To be fair, I wouldn’t ask for mushrooms and then not know the difference between that and a placebo.”

“No, you’re bat crap crazy!” she quoted again and his arms immediately went to her sides to grab at her waist. “No! No tickling!”

“Say the line!” he prompted as his fingers found the most sensitive spots on her sides to make her squirm.

She was on her back and trying to wiggle away from him as he maneuvered himself on top of her. She was pushing her heels into the couch to get away from him but as she laughed, she ended up grinding into his pelvis. His fingers persisted and she cried out in laughter and discomfort.

“Say it!”

“Rock from Mars!” she cried quoting their beloved director Kim Manners. “Rock from Mars!”

Kim used to shout it at them when he wanted more excitement and energy from their efforts in a scene. It became an inside joke between them when they were going through personal hard times and wanted to make each other laugh.

His fingers retracted from her sides and they continued to laugh as they lay on the couch with him settled nicely between her thighs.

“So?” he asked as he began to move.

She quickly grabbed his grey sweater at his biceps and kept him on top of her. “Just-”

“What?” he asked cautiously. “Friends who don’t sleep together don’t dry hump on couches.”

“Do they dry hump on elevators?” she countered with a raised eyebrow and he made a face to concede her point. “Don’t move yet.”

He let out a long breath of uneasiness but he settled himself more on top of her. “This would be great for me if you moved a little to the left.”

She adjusted her hips a little and felt the half-swollen flesh hit her through her jeans. “Oh.”

“So surprised after all these years that still happens with you,” he said as he clucked his tongue at her. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated and closed her lips together again. “No, no. Say it.”

“I guess I don’t understand why,” she said referring to the hardened flesh between them that was growing as she spoke. “Nothing… sexy… was happening.”

“You think this thing doesn’t like romance too?” he asked. “I told you before, men like to be wooed.”

She nodded as she shifted again underneath him and bit back a moan as he pushed against her. “Was I wooing you?”

He shook his head. “No, you were just being highly adorable and you know how that gets to me.”

She smiled up at him. “I was not. This is not me being one hundred per cent cute or adorable and you know it. I don’t think you could handle the whole thing anyway.”

“How cute are you being right now?” he asked.

She pushed her mouth to the side and thought for a moment. “Forty-two per cent.”

“This is forty-two per cent cuteness?” he asked.

“Measuring it bumped it up to fifty-seven but yes prior to this, it was forty-two per cent,” she said certainly.

He pushed his face into the crook of her neck and breathed heavily. “Fuck, you’re killing me.”

She ran her hands up his back and felt the muscles under the woven material of his sweater. “Sorry.”

His face moved up from her sweater and he kissed the skin at her collarbone. “I’m sorry too.”

She arched her back under him and pressed her body against his completely. “This probably isn’t clearing anything up.”

“Not when you do that it doesn’t,” he confirmed and looked down between them. “You had to wear that necklace today?”

“I always wear it…”

“Not on Sunday,” he noted.

“I took it off before I got into my dress,” she replied quietly and brushed the bottom of her foot up and down the back of his leg.

The box David had been holding fell to the floor and they looked down their bodies toward the noise.

“You’re keeping that gift,” he said as they looked back at one another.

Their eyes met and she knew what she wanted next. She hoped it wasn’t too late and he had realized how bat crap out of her mind she was.

“David,” she started.

His mouth descended on hers before she could say anything else. The kisses were immediately passionate but not needy. He was being tender with her as the roughness of his three-day stubble scratched at her face. His hips moved down against hers and she moaned as he pushed his erection into her centre. He repeated the action as her fingers slipped under his sweater to scratch her manicured nails up his back.

They had a few hard set rules between them. No marking each other with hickeys because they weren’t substandard people who needed to advertise their ability to get laid. Occasionally, one of them broke the rules and usually she left with a salient bite mark where the nerves were particularly sensitive. The marks up his back wouldn’t need to be explained away any time soon since he had just returned from his last family trip.

“Ah,” he groaned as her fingernails bit into the skin at the top of his back on his shoulders.

His mouth captured her lips again and they were slowly building a momentum into frenzied desire. There was nothing to prove with these kisses. It was the way two mouths met who knew how to please the other while building their own desires.

She liked how his tongue felt against hers. She liked how his mouth fit perfectly on her lips and the way his hips pushed against hers in a rhythm that shot sparks of pleasure through her belly.

His left hand moved from the side of her head to her belly and he pushed one hand up under her sweater. His smooth hands with calloused fingers from guitar lessons felt familiar but new. A large palm moved over her breast and squeezed slightly.

Her hands moved down his back and under the waist of his jeans. She could feel the soft cotton material to his boxer briefs and the desire to pull them down his long legs became overwhelming.

Gillian pulled her lips from his and he watched her face as she signalled for him to get up.

“What?”

“Stand up,” she said breathily. “And take off your fucking clothes.”

The man didn’t need more prompting or discussions. He got off the couch and they stood in front of each other as their shirts were discarded. He put his sweater on the couch where he had just been mimicking a sex act with her. Before he could undo his pants, her fingers were at the button on his jeans.

Her fingers brushed against the flesh tenting in his jeans as she undid the waist and carefully unzipped his pants. She pushed the material over his ass and he stepped out of them slowly.

The dark grey and kelly green striped boxer briefs hugged his body the way she liked. It wasn’t sloppy or misleading.

“Did I…” she began. “Did I buy that for you?”

David gestured to the bralette and sheer panties he gave her not too long ago. “Tit for tat.”

She looked down at the black sheer Coucou Lola mesh bralette. It was the same one that she had worn under her dress at a church reading recently because something deep inside of her couldn’t attend an event without something naughty underneath. When she looked back up at him, a smile played on her lips.

She liked the way the Only Hearts brand felt against her skin similar to the La Perla items she owned. She liked the sweet silhouette and the polka dot mesh that was cheeky and sexy. The fact that he sent it to her with a note that said ‘It would be wrong for you not to own this’ made her laugh. She immediately bought similar items in white, nude, cream and deep purple. Selfridges wasn’t a shop she normally frequented for lingerie but once she tried it on, she made a trip there and spent far too much money.

Of course, of the days she wasn’t planning to see him, she had the undergarments on under her clothing he bought for her and the necklace he used as a proposal at her birthday. If she had any doubts about how she felt about him, she should recall that her subconscious thought of him fondly and frequently.

“Did you buy this for me?” she teased.

His hand grabbed at the thick flesh pushing against his underwear. “Don’t tell me someone else is buying you underpants.”

She pulled her hand behind her and tugged on the small clasp at the back. The flimsy material fell around her waist and she put the bra on top of her sweater. She stood before him, bare chested, with jeans and socks on. It was oddly erotic.

“I don’t have that relationship with anyone else,” she told him.

“Well, the first time I did it, I didn’t expect you to wear it,” he said.

She laughed. “I wore it as a ‘fuck you’ but it was slightly embarrassing for me when you noticed.”

He shook his head as his fingers undid the button on her jeans. “Of all the fucking days… You picked the day US weekly showed up.”

“Would you believe that I forgot they were coming?” she asked as she shimmied her hips out of the dark jeans.

His fingers brushed along the creamy skin on her thighs. “You were showing me magazine pictures while I sat in a chair for hair and makeup. I could see right down your shirt and there was that La Perla set I thought would be funny to send you.”

“Was it funny?” she asked as she stepped out of her jeans.

“It made me hard,” he confessed.

She looked down to where he was crouched on the floor, helping her remove her pants and socks. He always made her feel cared for, protected and safe even when he was peeling her nylons off her legs in her trailer between takes. He would put one hand over her mouth to keep the noise at a minimum as his other gripped her hip so he could pound into her with slow and deliberate strokes. Such a strange way to take a lunch break but it helped relieve the tension from fourteen-hour work days.

He kissed her calves and then the front of her thighs. “Best two hundred bucks I ever spent.”

The note inside the delicate box when a PA delivered it to her trailer said, “In case you wanted something nicer than white cotton.”

At the time, she felt offended and a little turned on. Then, she put the silk-blend material on and became slightly aroused. She knew La Perla was expensive.

“I was so sure you got a PA to go out and get that for you,” she commented as his face kissed along the trim of her sheer black panties.

She thread her fingers into his hair and looked down her torso to watch his lips pepper her alabaster skin with light touches.

“And when I told you I picked it out myself?” he asked as his fingers slipped under the edge of her panties to inch them down her hips.

“It…” she started. “Excited me.”

He smiled against her lower tummy and placed an open mouth kiss along the four-inch scar most bathing suits and undergarments hid from the world. “I hoped it would.”

Her head fell back as she held onto him and his kisses began to move south. She adjusted her feet slightly to stand further apart and his tongue dipped between her folds.

“I missed the taste of you,” he whispered as his hand slid up between her thighs.

A long finger pushed up inside her walls and she realized the ache she was feeling earlier was her own excitement. She was wet, not embarrassingly so, but his finger pushed inside her with an ease that made her sigh audibly.

His tongue found her clit easily as if the map to her release was burned on his brain while his finger turned and crooked forward. A second finger pushed inside and he began moving them deliberately in and out, his tongue went to work.

Her knees felt weak but she fought to stay upright. His movements with his mouth were deliberate as a U was drawn across her clit with each stroke of his fingers. It was exquisite, precise and meticulous work by a man who always put her needs first. Even in the middle of his most selfish stages, he was considerate, tender and caring to her.

As her orgasm began to build and she felt the embers of desire burning inside her belly. It was a wave washing over her at the same time as something bubbling up from deep down. She wondered how sex with David could be so many things at the same time but that could be said about their relationship as well.

He did this for her so selflessly. He was tenacious and giving while being so persistent at her release being something he could feel proud of later. No matter the circumstance, he made sure she was satisfied whether it was an angry fuck against the wall of her foyer or the slow, sweet movements inside hotel rooms after a day of press for the revival of their show. He knew how to give her love the ways she wanted and needed.

The memories of each time together were building the excitement in her brain as her body was wandering down the long path to her emancipation of the tensions she’d been harbouring since she last saw him in Vancouver.

His fingers pushed toward the front wall of her womb and she felt herself contract around his fingers as a rush of blood swelled her sex.

“Oh fuck!” she cried out and her knees buckled.

His other arm caught her quickly and helped her to the ground as his fingers continued to push inside her.

“Oh!” she cried as his mouth found her sex again. His tongue was relentless and flattened out across her clit as his teeth brushed against the swollen flesh below it. “Fuck!”

Her voice became so high pitched at moments like this she almost didn’t recognize the sound of it. She was grinding against his face while his fingers pushed against her. There was so much happening as she was coming undone and he was there to carry her through to the end.

It became something that overtook her as she felt a release through the capillaries in her face then down to her toes. The small bundle of nerves at her centre could create a rush of blood that she felt at the base of her skull. It was all she needed to completely let go. It was almost painful as she rode the consummate spring of liberation. It wasn’t just an act. She was coming and her whole body felt every inch of it.

Suddenly his touch was too much and she squirmed on the rug away from him.

“No more!” she sighed as she moved away. She put her hand over the swollen lips that were now wet with his saliva and her own excitement. “Oh, that was good.”

He was already shedding his briefs as she was working to sit up and face him. She crawled toward him on the rug and pushed him to sit down on the plush carpet under them. He was reaching to bring her on his lap. She had other ideas.

Taking his wrists in her hands, she dipped her head down and took him completely into her mouth. A long, low groan exited his lips as she held him in her mouth and he twitched against her tongue.

He freed his wrists from her loose grasp and his hands rubbed up and down her bare back as her head bobbed up and down along his flesh. She could feel him counting her vertebrae as a way to stave off coming in her mouth so he could hopefully bend her over the end of the bed.

She hummed in appreciation as his hands found her backside and he squeezed.

“I love touching you like this while you do that,” he sighed.

She had to give it up to the yoga he suggested she take up ages ago. It certainly made bending her body in half to perform fellatio on the floor of a New York hotel room a little easier. Among other things.

Her lips reached the tip of his cock and she kissed the smooth flesh before going down his shaft again. As she pulled back and her tongue flicked at the small scar at the head of his cock, a strangled noise came from the back of his throat.

“That… fuck,” he managed.

She would laugh if she could but she was too busy hollowing her cheeks, increasing her suction and trying to make up for breaking his heart that summer. Her fingers pushed on the insides of his thighs where she knew his sensitive spots were. He was twitching with each upstroke.

“I might… oh fuck, I don’t want to come yet, Gillian,” he grunted.

Her lips released his cock and it bobbed in the air under her chin before she sat up in front of him. His lips were still glistening from tasting her and almost as though he could tell what she was thinking, he licked away the remnants of her orgasm.

He took her biceps into his grip and pulled her to a standing position very carefully. They walked toward the bed and just as he was about to push her to sit, she climbed on top and turned her backside to him.

“This way,” she said over her shoulder.

The look in his eye was animalistic, which was what she wanted. His hand went to his member and he stroked it as he climbed on the bed behind her.

“Really?” he asked with a low growl that showed his delight.

It was not a secret that he liked to have her this way but it wasn’t common practice for them. Not as often as he expressed he would like but that was the compromise they made for living continents apart. She told him once, half jokingly, that the geography kept her away from dogs as a way to hopefully bring them closer. A few months later, he presented her with Nelson, the chocolate Frenchie, and she had hopes for living with less distance between them.

His hands smoothed along the skin on her backside and she turned her head to look at him positioning himself at her entrance. His eyes were watching the tip of his cock and he glanced up quickly to her face as he pushed inside of her completely and all the way.

They sighed in unison as he reached the hilt. They took a moment as he rocked against her and the tip of his cock brushed against her cervix. She bit her lip and felt the flesh between her teeth swell as she dragged the edge through the sharp edges. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked back at him watching the space where they were joined.

“This looks good,” he noted in a way that was reluctant appreciation.

“What bothers you about saying that?” she asked as she pushed her ass against his pelvis.

She knew that he wasn’t supposed to think about life in pornographic terms and their actions should be based on deeper connections. What they had was twenty-four years deep and she almost laughed at the parallel to her book. At the time, she felt clever to insert these connections to her own life. The longing of a friend to being more than what they were with work bringing them continually together.

Before she submitted the words to her publisher, she reread what she had jotted down, seeing how much her heart ached for something substantial. Except she created a long-lived platonic friendship between Ben and Caitlin, whereas she and David spent too long sneaking around.

Maybe she wrote what she wished for at the time. Her life would have had a lot fewer complications, hurt feelings, and lies. What she had was a man, inside of her, that knew her better than anyone and for some reason loved her in spite of all the things about her that made her less than appealing.

He saw every flaw and crack in her and loved her regardless.

“I love you,” he breathed as he pulled back. His hips slammed into her and she cried out. “Fuck, I love you.”

Such vulgarities peppered with adorations of affection were common from him. She appreciated the mix of love and coarse words. It always soothed what she needed from him. A mix of affection, longing and something deep and primal. The chemical reaction between them on screen didn’t stop at the words ‘cut!’ As much as they argued and fought over petty things, their attraction was beyond their control. It was instinct behaving without reason.

He pulled his hips back and slammed into her over and over again. His right hand moved from her hip to her stomach. His hand splayed across her belly and then travelled toward her centre where they were joined. As his hips pushed into her again, the pad of his finger swiped across her clit once. Each thrust in, as the head of his cock pushed against her insides and his hands worked to bring her release, her insides began to clench.

“Oh god… How… you just got tighter,” he growled and he lowered his body so he was draped over her back.

His other hand was next to hers on the bed and they were moving in unison. She pushed her ass back into his hips while she moved against his hand. His mouth was kissing along her shoulder blades, sending tingles down to her sex.

He knew how to anticipate what they both needed. He was an expert at her body as much as she was at his. Every action created a reaction. Every thrust resulted in a counter-effect to result in what could only be described by her as absolution from the weight of the world she carried on her shoulders. He made her forget about everything else while he pumped his achingly large sized cock inside her. The world melted away when used his fingers to play on her body or tongue across the bundle of nerves at her centre. Anyone would be so lucky to find this kind of connection with another person that made them leave everything at the door.

David straightened his body and pulled out of her to push her onto the bed. He flipped her over onto her back and pushed into her with one quick motion. If anyone else in her life manhandled her in such a manner, it might set off too many red flags. With him, she only felt safe while dangerously teetering on an exposure to her private life their relationship risked at the same time.

Just being with him today put them at risk for needing to answer more questions about their friendship. After the whirlwind of 2013 until well after the premiere of the last season, she was ready to face those questions again.

“Focus,” he grunted as he pumped in and out of her. “I’m trying to have sex with you here.”

She laughed a little and he paused his hips to kiss her softly on the lips.

“How did you know?” she asked him as he kissed each cheek softly.

“You stopped saying ‘oh god’ as I moved,” he answered as his lips moved to her neck.

He scratched his cheek along the sensitive nerves at her neck and she raised her shoulder to crook her neck away from him.

“Was I doing that?” she asked.

“It makes me feel pretty fantastic when you’re so in your head you don’t even know you’re moaning to God while I am inside you,” he teased. He kissed her shoulder and bit into the flesh lightly. Her alabaster skin marked so easily but it sent tingles through her body in all the ways she liked. It was such a dilemma to have to want someone to devour you whole but not wanting the questions from anyone where you got them.

“I have an event in Switzerland,” she reminded as she took his face in her hands. “You can’t leave me-”

“I would never,” he interrupted.

“You can’t leave me today looking thoroughly fucked and marked,” she tried to repeat but she laughed a little.

He kissed her lips softly and settled himself on his elbows on top of her. They both sighed as his cock twitched inside her as though it was begging for release.

They had brought a lot out into the open with each other today and she still felt a relief by his touch. She used to worry if they got too close or let him in too much, the sex would be different. Eventually, he tore down her walls with his own vulnerability. For every time he needed a friend, she had tried to be there and his delight at her tenaciousness at their friendship had been the thing that made them endure all these years.

“Wear long sleeves and higher collars,” he suggested. “You know it’s not in my nature not to be thorough when it comes to fucking you.”

They both laughed and their eyes shared a moment of more than just humour. There was some love behind the pale green orbs that stared into her soul.

“Do you forgive me?” she asked him.

“Are you giving us another try?” he countered and she nodded slowly. “Say it out loud, Gillian.”

“I want to give this another try,” she said honestly.

He watched her face as she spoke and he nodded. “I forgive you if you can forgive me not standing up for you.”

“Tit for tat?” she teased.

“As we do,” he laughed.

“I think…” she started and pulled on her lower lip through her teeth as she thought about what she wanted to say. “I think I can face the firing squad as they were. If you’ll stand by me…”

“I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else,” he vowed. “You’ll be honest?”

“I’ll do my best,” she returned. “Will you?”

“I’ll always tow the company line,” he reminded her and she understood.

Of all the bullshit they had to spew during the promotion for the last series, she tried to be as upbeat as he was…

“So we’ll come up with something?” she asked.

He nodded and kissed her lips as a way to remind her they were actually having sex before this big discussion came up again. His kiss was fervent and needy. She moved her hand between their bodies to touch herself. Her sex felt slick against her fingers and she twitched at the contact.

“Oh fuck,” she moaned as she broke the kiss.

“Did you hear yourself say that?” he asked as he sat back on his haunches to watch her. His cock remained inside her as she used her middle finger to play at her body to his visual delight. “That looks really good.”

She closed her eyes briefly then turned her attention to his face to observe him as he watched her. Such an intimate act to touch herself as he remained still inside. He had described the actions of how her body felt around him as she did this before and it heightened the experience for her further. To feel what he felt as she reached her own climax was sexy. She liked the kind of sexy that he made her feel.

“It feels good,” she sighed as her finger increased pressure and moved faster. “Oh… so… fucking… good.”

She could see the lines of his abs as he looked down at her. He was as much of a provocative man as he told her she was as a woman. There was something about both of them that felt unconventional to her.

“Keep going,” he urged her as his eyes closed briefly. “You’re getting so tight.”

His fingers gripped her hips and he held on as she continued to work her bundle of nerves. If she could get her inner lips to swell, she would feel the orgasm from the small nerves in her sinus cavity down to her toes.

Her lips began to swell and she moved her finger faster. “Oh god, oh god!”

“Yes,” he encouraged and he pulled his hips back to push in again.

“Yes!” she cried out. “Again!”

They began to rock in motion, her hand working at her sex as he fucked her and his jaw went slack.

“I’m gonna come…” he warned.

“I’m… oh… I’m… fuck…”

The incoherent stage of her orgasm had arrived and she felt herself on the brink of her release. She wanted it so desperately and she heard a whimper escape her throat as she put her other hand on her breast. His eyes moved back from watching their bodies join to her pinching her nipple.

“Yeah…” he growled and began pumping faster.

They moved frantically against each other as their undoing was imminent. His hand pulled her leg over his arm and he slipped his hand under her ass to push his thumb under his cock at their joining. As he lubricated it with her juices, she realized what was coming next.

“ _Don’t_ …” she started but his thumb was already pressing against the entrance to her back door. “Oh… fuck _yes_ ….”

“Don’t?” he questioned as he teased her nerves.

“Do it,” she urged and his thumb pushed all the way inside. “Oh my god!”

He flexed his thumb to find the pulsing nerve inside her and suddenly her whole being was coming apart. She didn’t know if the noise in her head was imagined or if it was her yelling out to God for mercy. Her fingers felt a rush of fluid from where they were joined and he yelled her name.

They were coming in harmony. It was a rediscovery of all the ways they worked. Everything was chemical and beyond what they could help. This was the magic she so deeply desired in life.

If she could take back some actions in life, it might be almost slapping someone who poignantly called out what she had been yearning for since arriving to a Los Angeles call to play a smart medical doctor FBI agent. Instead of hating him for quoting Blanche to her, she should have realized what he was trying to say. She had been searching for magic all her life and somehow it found her in this hotel room in New York City. It found her when she wanted the normalcy of a monogamous relationship with someone ordinary and the pull of a man who knew her better and longer. More than twice. It found her when her life was falling apart and the public was watching her so carefully while she walked red carpets and did interview after interview with the same questions.

This time she was tired of it searching for her. She wanted to embrace this love and never let go. She had to tell him.

“Okay,” he said quietly with a smile as he pulled the thumb from her ass.

“What okay?” she asked panting.

He stayed inside of her but lowered himself onto his elbows to rest. He kissed her cheeks and smiled like a man who just won the lottery. “All that stuff you just said…”

“I was talking out loud?” she questioned as she ran her hands up his back.

“For someone who tells the media she’s a believer, you second guess me a lot,” he teased. He kissed her mouth firmly. “You told me you wanted to embrace this love and never let go.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she said in realization. He pulled his face back slightly and panic flickered across his face. She grabbed his face with her hands. “No, no no! I meant it.”

“You mean it?” he asked with a quiet voice that was somewhere in the neighbourhood of adorable and vulnerable that it made her heart physically ache.

“Rock from Mars and all that nonsense,” she confirmed.

He smiled broadly and kissed her again when he managed to get his lips to stop flashing his teeth at her. He pulled out and handed her a wad of tissues from the box on the side table before retreating to the bathroom. As she walked naked across her hotel room, there was a knock at the door and she stopped short.

“ _Miss Anderson? It’s hotel security_ ,” a deep voice called through the door.

“Yes?” she said walking slowly toward the door and grabbing David’s sweater off the couch to cover herself.

“ _We got a report of some yelling,_ ” the baritone asked through the door. “ _Is everything all right_?”

“Uh, yeah!” she called and looked around the room. David was pulling his shorts on and gesturing to open the door. “Hold on!”

He tossed the sheer panties towards her and she pulled them on quickly as he pulled his jeans up his hips.

“Go on,” he urged her.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to a large hotel security officer with a deep blue blazer. He took in the sight of Gillian in a man’s sweater and David standing in the middle of the room with a pile of clothes around their feet. Her hair was obviously a mess and she could smell the sex wafting off of her.

“Never mind, ma’am,” the security officer said and stepped back from the doorway.

“Well, _fuck me_ ,” she muttered as she closed the door.

David pressed her into the door and kissed her soundly. When their lips parted, he smiled at her secretively. “We survived that, all right?”

She nodded. “That was fucking embarrassing!”

“You survived worse things, haven’t you?” he teased.

“I think I went to an awards show in a material that looked like someone’s drapes while awkward and fat,” she mused.

“You never were fat,” he admonished her and she made a face. “You weren’t.”

“ _Okay_ ,” she muttered.

“Women are-”

“What?” she challenged as he stepped away.

“To be _revered_ ,” he finished.

She studied his face. “Do you worry you’re a little whipped?”

He smiled broadly. “I don’t but there are worse things... Like being without you.”

The man was good with those zingers. They always got her right in the heart to endear her to him. It worked. She was captivated, for better or worse.

 


End file.
